David Lennon: Mets' David Stearns has rebounded from curious early offseason decisions
Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns speaks during an introductory press conference for Bo Bichette on Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, at Citi Field. Credit: AP/Heather Khalifa
Speaking amid the September debris of the Mets’ 79-loss stink bomb, David Stearns pledged to “fix” his malfunctioning $340 million roster, which consistently found annoying ways to (under) perform like the worst team money could buy.
Stage One of Stearns’ solution was to immediately take a sledgehammer to the Mets’ beloved core, a group for which he — plainly put — harbored no long-standing affection. The shocking trade of Brandon Nimmo to the Rangers was followed by allowing Pete Alonso to walk to the Orioles (and the inevitable shipment of Jeff McNeil to the A’s).
Stearns and owner Steve Cohen probably wish they had a do-over with Edwin Diaz’s defection to the Dodgers, but the former closer now gets added to the demolition pile anyway, a casualty of the Mets’ hellbent efforts toward Flushing’s winter renovation.
It was a curious strategy by Stearns and Cohen. The duo are lifelong Mets fans themselves yet chose to enrage that same tragically loyal base by jettisoning their favorites.
Somehow the regular-season sting got even worse in the weeks that followed. The malfunction looked more like malpractice.
No longer.
As much as “run prevention” was the oft-repeated mantra for Stearns entering this winter, it now feels more like a dressed-up code for blowing the whole dang thing up.
Which brings us to Stage Two of Stearns’ plan. The Mets have seriously overhauled their roster in rapid fashion, along with spending some major prospect capital (and Cohen’s cash) in the process.
In a lightning-strike span of six days, Stearns signed Bo Bichette to a three-year, $126 million contract — installing the shortstop at third base — traded for a high-upside, distressed-asset, defensively elite centerfielder in Luis Robert Jr. and then won the Freddy Peralta sweepstakes late Wednesday night by importing him from the Brewers for Brandon Sproat and Jett Williams.
That’s in addition to getting Marcus Semien for second base (at Nimmo’s expense), signing Jorge Polanco (two years, $40M) for first base and aggressively retooling the bullpen (Devin Williams, Luke Weaver, Luis Garcia, Tobias Myers).
“We’re going to go into this year with a very talented group, but also a group that looks somewhat different,” Stearns said Thursday on a Zoom call. “There’s going to be a lot of guys in our clubhouse who really have no affiliation at all with what happened to us in ’25. I think that’s healthy and I think that’s good for us.”
Stearns’ cold-blooded teardown of the Mets now seems like a lifetime ago rather than a mere five weeks, but the ghosts of Nimmo, Alonso and Diaz aren’t going away just yet. There’s still plenty of those shirseys and fond memories floating around in the stubborn consciousness of the Mets’ faithful.
“We knew what the response was going to be when we made some of the decisions we made early in the offseason,” Stearns said. “We completely understand it. Those are tough decisions.”
But to Stearns’ credit, with Cohen’s solid backing, he acknowledged from the jump that what the Mets previously had didn’t work. Now we’ll see if fortune truly favors the bold, because Stearns dived headfirst into this radical makeover with high-salary, short-term rentals that amount to pushing all of his chips to the center for 2026.
After the ’25 disaster, that’s perfectly fine. The Mets don’t get the luxury of half-measures, not when you’ve weaned this next generation on the promise of Cohen’s billions and the paying customers expect a World Series contender on a regular basis.
Bichette is a major upgrade as far as a third-base bat goes, and his tenacity at the plate will provide the necessary protection for Juan Soto (handling the new position shouldn’t be an issue for the former shortstop). But with an opt-out after the first season, expect Bichette to be back on the market, regardless of his stated Mets love at Wednesday’s news conference.
Peralta is pitching in this walk year at the bargain rate of $8 million, and his looming free agency is the reason Milwaukee traded him in the first place. Robert is earning $20 million this season, but next year is a $20 million option (with a $2 million buyout).
But the lack of longer-term ties to the Mets is not necessarily a bad thing. Bichette, Peralta and Robert have the additional motivation of playing for a huge payday, which also works to the Mets’ advantage.
“Freddy has clearly established himself as one of the top starters in baseball,” Stearns said. “He’s a player I know well, a player I trust and a player who I think is going to mesh very well with our organization and city.”
None of these moves come without some risk, however.
Peralta finished fifth in the Cy Young Award voting this year (2.70 ERA, 10.4K/9) despite averaging a somewhat light 5 1⁄3 innings per start (he did make more than 30 starts for the third straight season, however).
Robert followed his All-Star 2023 season (38 homers, .857 OPS) with two injury-riddled campaigns, totaling 28 homers in 210 games and hitting .223.
Williams lost his closer job during last year’s bumpy intro to New York and Weaver flamed out spectacularly with the Yankees.
Bichette and Polanco are being counted on to start at positions they’ve never played before in the majors.
“There’s going to be learning curves,” Stearns said. “We’re going to make mistakes. I also have a high degree of confidence that [Bichette and Polanco] are going to figure it out and be able to play their positions at a very high level.”
Stearns can take some consolation in the fact that he appears to have weathered the harshest part of this offseason and emerged triumphant on the other side. But deep down, he’s smart enough to realize you don’t take any victory laps before October.
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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.
