David Stearns, the Mets’ president of baseball operations, had a somewhat surprising early April “state-of-the-team” press conference last week ostensibly to sing the praises of his manager Carlos Mendoza for weathering the team’s dismal 0-5 start, all at home, and guiding them back to a winning record that was fueled by two out of three wins in Atlanta against the Braves.
Stearns talked about Mendoza’s “consistency, positivity” and the team’s “energy” which just seemed to evolve, adding “that’s really tough to manufacture from a front office perspective.”
He was right about all of that, but I’m sure Stearns is also privately quite pleased at how his subtle, low budget “Milwaukee Brewers-like” offseason maneuverings are already paying big dividends, at the same time as some in-house talent discoveries could potentially alter the modest 85-win expectations of the owner, Steve Cohen. Mind you, this Mets team has demonstrated plenty of warts so far with some mind-numbing sloppy fielding at times and their catchers are 0-for-25 throwing out base runners going into the weekend. But they were tied with the Braves for the second-most (7) comeback wins in the majors and their overall 3.15 team ERA was sixth in the majors while their bullpen had the most strikeouts and had yielded the fifth fewest runs.
Indeed, it is the Mets’ pitching which has changed the outlook, not just for this year, but for 2025 and beyond, and the loss of Kodai Senga until June at the earliest with a shoulder strain has not been felt.
Faced with a luxury tax payroll of $340 million that included nearly $50 million in “dead money” from the contracts of Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander and James McCann, Stearns was limited in what he could do last winter to address the Mets’ needs and chose to work around the edges, filling out the starting rotation behind Senga and Jose Quintana by signing Luis Severino for $13 million, Sean Manaea for two-years, $28 million and acquiring Adrian Houser from the Brewers along with backup outfielder Tyrone Taylor.
After a rough first outing against the Brewers on March 30, Severino proceeded to reel off three straight stellar starts in which he yielded a total of just two earned runs and looked every bit the top-of-the-rotation starter he was with the Yankees before being felled by all the injuries. Manaea and Houser have been OK — about what you expect from back-of-the-rotation starters — but the real stalwart so far has been Jose Butto, who after bouncing back and forth as a spot starter from Triple-A last year, struck out 15 over 12 innings in his first two starts.
“The only way you’re getting out [of paying luxury tax every year] is you have to have a good farm system,” Cohen said earlier this spring. He was looking ahead and referring specifically to the high cost of starting pitching. But if Butto is real, as scouts, Met operatives, and even former manager Buck Showalter insist he is, and Severino stays dominant, and top prospect Christian Scott continues on the fast track for delivery midseason, the Mets could suddenly have the deepest rotation, quality wise, in the NL East.
Another “find” this spring has been the righty reliever Reed Garrett, who struck out 17 in his first four outings and has looked like a totally different pitcher than last year when he was roughed up for 11 runs over 17 innings in nine relief stints after being picked up off waivers from the Orioles. Between Garrett and the serviceable lefty Jake Diekman (who Stearns signed for $4 million with a $4 million option last winter), not to mention the return of Edwin Diaz, Mendoza has considerably more bullpen weapons than Showalter had last year.
All of which is why 85 wins might be too modest.
What’s going to be interesting is how Stearns operates next winter when he’s out from under the Scherzer, Verlander and McCann financial obligations. A decision certainly is going to have to be made on Pete Alonso and the temptation will be there to pursue Juan Soto. Cohen can’t sign both and you keep hearing that Stearns’ analytics crew is against re-signing Alonso. On the other hand, with Stearns’ analytic (and small market) background, doling out a contract of 10-12 years and upwards of $400 million for Soto might seem abhorrent, especially when Alonso can probably be secured for half of that and the Mets’ two elite prospects, Jett Williams and Drew Gilbert, are both outfielders who’ll be ready next year.
That’s why, come November, the most watched person in baseball is going to be David Stearns.
IT’S A MADD, MADD WORLD
Farewell John Sterling and to quote one of your favorites Bob Hope, “Thanks for the memories.” … The Chicago White Sox, by far the worst team in baseball even with Luis Robert (who’s expected to be out for at least 6-8 weeks with a hip flexor injury), went into the weekend with a .196 team batting average that doesn’t figure to get a whole lot better. Which means, in addition to challenging the ’62 Mets’ 40-120 worst record in history, the White Sox might also challenge their 1910 ancestors, who hold the modern record for batting futility with a .212 collective average. … Before he became a Hall of Fame manager with the Cardinals and Royals, Whitey Herzog, who died Monday at age 92, had his baseball roots with the Yankees and Mets. The Yankees originally signed him as a player but traded him to the Washington Senators before he ever reached the Bronx and he went on to have a very mediocre eight-year career with four different teams about which he later quipped: “Baseball’s been very good to me since I stopped trying to play it.” It started when he was named farm director for the Mets in 1966 and under his watch they developed the core of the 1969 and ’73 championship clubs — Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, Nolan Ryan, Wayne Garrett, Gary Gentry, John Milner plus standout outfielders Ken Singleton and Amos Otis who they traded before they reached their prime. It was at the 1971 Winter Meetings in Phoenix that Herzog was sitting around having breakfast in the headquarters hotel with a bunch of New York writers when one of the Mets’ PR men came to the table and informed him they had just traded four players to the Angels for third baseman Jim Fregosi. “Who are the four players?” Herzog asked, to which the PR man began reciting their names — Ryan and minor leaguers Frank Estrada, Don Rose, Leroy Stanton. “Wait a minute” Herzog gasped. “You’re telling me we traded Nolan Ryan plus three players for Fregosi? I wouldn’t have traded Stanton straight up for him!” It was because of his outspoken opinions that Herzog ran afoul of the stuffed-shirt imperial Mets president M. Donald Grant, who passed him over for Mets manager in favor of Yogi Berra when Gil Hodges died in 1972. Not only that, Grant would not permit Herzog to attend Hodges’ funeral, and soon thereafter Whitey quit the Mets and began his managerial career, first with Texas. The rest is history.
