Laura Albanese: Mets' David Stearns has failed, but he'll have another chance to avoid becoming a complete failure
Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns speaks to reporters during his end-of-season news conference at Citi Field on Monday. Credit: Jeff Bachner
David Stearns doesn’t get mulligans. He said so himself when he was asked Monday if he regrets not pursuing Pete Alonso in free agency last offseason.
The Mets’ maligned president of baseball operations doesn’t get to visit himself as the Ghost of Miserable Seasons Yet to Come. He doesn’t get to warn that younger version to never utter the words “run prevention” (he’s retired that phrase, by the way). He doesn’t get to tell himself that certain players just aren’t built for New York no matter how good they look on paper. And he can’t redo the 2025 offseason to better protect against the mudslide that buried the 2026 team long before the All-Star break.
“We and I made a number of decisions that created the potential for almost an uncapped downside scenario,” he said at his Citi Field postmortem. “I think we try to learn from everything, and I think the entire offseason last year was a learning experience for me.”
At times, Stearns can have an antiseptic quality about him. He’s measured in his tone and careful with his words, and it can be too easy to assume that means he isn’t affected by the magnitude of his failures.
But though the timbre and cadence of his speech didn’t change Monday, he did spend more than a half-hour acknowledging his shortcomings and providing a glimpse into the things he hopes to change.
“[What we] experienced this past weekend, what we just experienced in Washington, where you are literally playing out the string — it’s miserable,” he said. “That’s a miserable experience for players, for coaches, for executives. So I think we have an extraordinarily motivated organization from ownership on down to ensure that never happens again.”
He hit on a few things: The Mets need more production from first and second base, they intend to add to the top of the rotation, he needs to create more roster flexibility, and though the franchise still hopes to build a self-sustaining winner powered by a strong prospect pipeline, “there are going to be selective, very aggressive pursuits [in free agency]. We have complete ownership support.”
Interestingly, he also said he’s learned to put higher value on the fact that certain players simply do not thrive in the highly pressurized environment that is New York. It’s a little surprising that it took him this long to come to that realization. He did, after all, grow up a Mets fan, meaning that he’s been exposed to that narrative since he was a kid.
“I think [my opinion has changed], yes,” he said. “When you live it and you see player reactions, both when they come here and when they leave here and you hear them talk about some of the differences that they experience here — I do think it’s important to have players here that lean into that and that enjoy it, because it’s unlike anywhere else.”
He added: “When you win here, it’s the greatest thing in the world . . . It’s equally extreme when things aren’t going well, and I do think certain players struggle with that.”
That goes for front office executives as well. No one on the Mets is more in the fans’ crosshairs than Stearns. The decision not to re-sign Alonso may very well follow him for the rest of his tenure here. Though he’s a homegrown New Yorker, it’s fair to ask the same question he now is forced to ask about the players he intends to acquire: Can he hack it here?
We don’t know for sure. But we do know that there are three categories: Those who can play in this cauldron of chaos, those who can’t and those who learn how to.
Stearns this past offseason managed to acquire all three. Steely Luke Weaver slots into the first spot. You can throw Freddy Peralta into the second group. And then there was Bo Bichette who, after spending months being regaled with boos, managed to claw his way out of the pit.
The third one is the hardest to do. You’ve already felt the sting of failure, and thousands of people telling you that you’re bad at your job has a way of playing with your head and begetting further failure.
It’s also what Stearns will personally have to do to turn this around.
This past offseason was supposed to be the trickiest of his career. It’ll look like child’s play compared to the one yet to come.
Besides a few jewels, it’s a weak free-agent class. There’s a looming lockout that threatens to bite into the 2027 season, along with a new collective bargaining agreement that undoubtedly will change how teams do business. This franchise currently is bathed in the stench of failure, and Stearns’ job will be to navigate all of that as the man who created the worst team money can buy . . . twice.
That said, there’s reason for hope. He was candid Monday and does seem determined to address his blind spots. By securing Andy Green as the manager, the Mets can at least count on some continuity there. And the youth group he assembled lends a genuine layer of excitement to next year’s squad.
“The disappointment of our season is very true and real,” he said. “We, as an organization, feel that. Our fan base feels that. There’s no denying any of that. There is also the real foundation here for the level of success and competitiveness that we expect to have.”
Stearns can’t go back in time. He can only use his failures to inform his future decisions. How and if he accomplishes that will determine whether he’s a Peralta or a Bichette, and if he can turn himself into the right man for the job.
Laura Albanese is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. She's been covering MLB since 2014 after starting at Newsday as an intern seven years earlier.
