David Lennon: Will David Stearns' vision of the Mets come to fruition on the field? We're about to see.
Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns during a workout on Wednesday at Citi Field Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca
For the first time since 2018, the Mets will play an Opening Day without Pete Alonso in their lineup. Six of those previous seven also included Brandon Nimmo and Jeff McNeil.
If the Mets have a lead Thursday in the ninth inning, you won’t hear “Narco” thundering over the Citi Field loudspeakers, either. Edwin Diaz, the team’s longtime closer, took his trumpets to L.A.
It’s going to be different.
And that’s mostly by design, as president of baseball ops David Stearns followed through on his October pledge to shake up the roster this past winter. But the moves didn’t all go according to plan.
The Mets would have liked a do-over on the Diaz fiasco. They also came up short (to the Dodgers) for coveted free-agent outfielder Kyle Tucker despite a mammoth four-year, $220 million offer.
But the 2026 roster you’ll see introduced Thursday by the retiring radio legend Howie Rose is going to be more closely aligned to Stearns’ vision than the past two under his jurisdiction. This is Stearns’ team -- built according to his blueprint -- and bankrolled by owner Steven Cohen’s $370 million investment, which is second only to the Dodgers ($396M) this season.
Stearns wanted a new core and a new vibe, to fumigate the clubhouse and wipe away the stain of last year’s second-half collapse. He’s had nearly five months to complete that makeover, with six weeks of fine-tuning down at Port St. Lucie.
Now we’ll see if it’s good enough. And not just to rinse out the bitter taste from last September. On the 40th anniversary of the Mets’ last World Series title, this newest Flushing renovation was done with an eye toward getting back to the Fall Classic -- and unlike the 2015 lightning-in-a-bottle team, finishing the job this time.
“It has definitely been too long,” Stearns said Wednesday, echoing the sentiments of his owner back in February. “I have zero memories of the Mets winning a World Series, right? They won a World Series when I was a year old. So it certainly has been too long.”
Stearns is among the aging generation of Mets fans whose first glimpse of a championship came from watching a dusty VHS tape. There’s no questioning Cohen’s commitment -- he’s spent more than $1.6 billion on players since acquiring the team in November of 2020. The question now becomes whether or not Stearns has put the right pieces together, and correctly dismissed what he decided were the wrong ones.
Trading for his Brewers favorite Freddy Peralta, the Mets’ Opening Day starter, was a no-brainer, despite the one-year rental (for now) costing him two premier prospects in Brandon Sproat and Jett Williams. The bubbly Peralta already has been a vibe-changer in the clubhouse, along with adding last year’s fifth-place Cy Young finisher to the top of the rotation.
Signing the contact-driven Bo Bichette, who excels in clutch spots, could be the league’s best free-agent addition, even with his ongoing adjustment to third base. But Stearns also left himself with a few dice rolls, hoping that Jorge Polanco handles first base, Luis Robert Jr. stays healthy in centerfield and Carson Benge, the rookie who won the rightfield job out of spring training, rewards the front office’s faith.
On paper, it looks like Stearns put together a roster that’s capable of making some new October memories. We picked them to win the division and then get as far as the NLCS before losing to the Dodgers, whose battle-tested core is going for a three-peat. Truth is, this group is harder to evaluate, because of so many new faces now having to perform in a very challenging environment.
And that only makes life more difficult for Carlos Mendoza, who is entering the third and final guaranteed season of his three-year contract. Mendoza went from Manager of the Year runner-up in 2024 to piloting one of the worst 3 1/2-month meltdowns in the sport’s history last season. Now he’ll take the field Thursday with a new coaching staff and a revamped roster with some significant clubhouse pillars missing. That’s only ratcheted up the pressure.
“There’s high expectations here since I’ve gotten to be in this position,” Mendoza said. “It’s been 40 years -- Steve [Cohen] said it early in spring training. We have a really good opportunity to do something special here. And our goal is not only playing in October, but deep into October, and winning a World Series.”
Plenty has already gone right for the Mets. The scariest spring training injury was Francisco Lindor’s surgically-repaired hamate bone and the quick healer made good on his promise to return by Opening Day. Juan Soto returned from the World Baseball Classic in one piece, as did Nolan McLean and Clay Holmes.
Kodai Senga seemingly has turned back the clock, pitching with both velocity and verve this spring. Stearns had telegraphed that he was hoping Benge would prove himself worthy of the Opening Day roster, and the kid came through for him, too.
Six months ago, the Mets staggered off the field in Miami, a broken and disillusioned team headed for oblivion. Stearns promised to fix it -- to patch the defensive holes, smooth over the clubhouse turbulence and, perhaps most importantly, chain last season’s failures to everyone he threw overboard.
So when the curtain finally goes up again Thursday at Citi Field, these Mets truly represent a clean slate. It’s as close to a fresh start as this franchise has had in a while, and we’ll see soon enough if all this change is for the better.
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.
