David Lennon: David Stearns addresses reality of Mets' troubling situation
Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns speaks to the media before a game against the Detroit Tigers at Citi Field on Tuesday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
If it’s any consolation, David Stearns didn’t smile quite as much during Tuesday’s 11-minute session with the media.
Stearns typically navigates these twice-monthly briefings with a wry grin that suggests he’s got the situation under control, no matter how high the flames might be rising around the Mets. That wasn’t the vibe we got before Tuesday’s game against the Tigers.
Instead, there was a tangible acknowledgement that yes, a few of the roster pieces he assembled this winter maybe were too frail, some of the gambles perhaps unwise in retrospect. Copping to those mistakes doesn’t do the president of baseball operations any good now, other than conveying the sense that he understands the serious trouble these Mets are in.
That’s a start. Fixing these Mets already feels near-impossible, at 10 games under .500 (15-25) a quarter through the season, but there’s no more illusions, either.
Stearns went to his Hail Mary early by summoning A.J. Ewing Tuesday after only a dozen games at Triple-A Syracuse because that was his only card to play at the moment. If his injury-ravaged roster doesn’t heal up relatively soon — a very unlikely outcome — and the players still upright don’t produce like Stearns’ algorithms projected they would, it’ll be a fire sale in Flushing before too long.
“I don’t think sitting here in the middle of May I’m going to do a post-mortem on our season,” Stearns said.
Fair enough. No need to throw dirt on these Mets yet. But it’s also getting harder to envision a scenario where Francisco Lindor, Luis Robert Jr. and Jorge Polanco climb off the trainer’s table in time to reverse course for this team.
Lindor is probably the most indispensable player, a versatile offensive weapon that handles a premium defensive position, and he’s still not expected back for a while due to his strained calf. Stearns said he was scheduled for an MRI over the next 48 hours, and only then would they put together an updated timetable for his return. Based on the original estimates, however, late June would be overly optimistic.
Robert and Polanco? That’s anyone’s guess. Robert — last seen playing centerfield as a middle-of-the order bat — is sidelined indefinitely due to a lumbar spine disc herniation. In layman’s terms, that’s a back issue, and one that continues to cause “unresolved” soreness, requiring more consultation with specialists.
And Polanco — you remember him, the switch-hitter that was supposed to play first base? — he’s hobbled by a stubborn case of Achilles bursitis that’s been around since Opening Day. The current diagnosis? Stearns said Polanco has to get “asymptomatic” with the ankle, and they’re not there yet.
Stearns gets a pass with Lindor. Nothing he can do about a very durable $341 million shortstop suddenly pulling up lame on the basepaths. He is on the hook for Robert and Polanco, however, two players who were injury-prone before signing with the Mets and then, as crazy as it sounds, immediately got injured. That’s nearly $40 million on the shelf for two starting players that won’t see the lineup anytime soon.
“I think we absolutely have to look at our risk-assessment on injured players,” Stearns said. “Certainly we know we’re taking a level of risk when we bring players in with injury histories. We’re feeling that risk right now and it hasn’t helped that a number of our players have gotten hurt at the exact same time. It’s not something we necessarily anticipated.”
Here’s some others. Bo Bichette hitting .222 with a .559 OPS. He’s on pace to finish this season with eight homers and 64 RBIs — not the kind of numbers that make you want to opt out of two more $42 million seasons. Of all Stearns’ winter acquisitions, Bichette is at the head of a very disappointing class, but Marcus Semien is right up there, too. Semien, swapped for Brandon Nimmo, was batting .225 with a .594 OPS.
And to think we’ve spent the past month discussing whether Carlos Mendoza should be fired. The more Stearns talked about his team Tuesday, the more the fault boomeranged back at him, which is why he personally turned down the temperature on Mendoza’s seat 12 days earlier. He stuck by that vote of confidence again Tuesday, adding, “I’m not going to address this every two weeks.”
As we’ve said plenty already, axing Mendoza likely would have zero impact on the Mets’ fortunes going forward, because the broken roster has been the problem all along. Using platoon options like Austin Slater and Andy Ibanez (DFA’ed Tuesday) wasn’t Mendoza’s brainchild — that’s a collaborative effort with Stearns’ patch jobs, to put it mildly.
It’s still premature on the baseball calendar to pull off more impactful upgrades on the trade front, so Stearns took his big swing Tuesday with Ewing, hoping to spark one of MLB’s worst offenses with a speedy, high-contact hitter with huge potential. On paper, that’s definitely possible. But throwing him into a panic city environment is not the ideal spot to succeed, when the Mets desperately need him to do so.
“We would not have made the decision if we didn’t feel he was ready to make the jump,” Stearns said.
No offense to Ewing, but Stearns’ batting average when it comes to decision-making lately is well below Bichette. That’s not sustainable for a team that began this season with playoff aspirations, or even one that hopes to regain a level of respectability, at minimum. Nobody involved with the Mets has been good enough — aside from a few exceptions on the pitching staff — but Stearns is among the worst.
“I’m not going to say it’s early,” Stearns said. “It’s not early anymore. But we do have enough season left to make a run.”
Technically, yes. The reality says something different.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
