Sports

As Frustrating Mets Season Continues, Blame Lies With David Stearns

By Jerry Beach Lindys Sports

It has been four days since Carlos Mendoza was spared the ordeal of managing the rest of the season for the New York Mets. And guess what? Turns out he wasn't the problem for the true worst team money could buy.

David Stearns offered his usual brand of surface-level accountability in discussing Mendoza's mercy firing Friday, when he declared "I take responsibility" for the mess that is the Mets and then used "we" far more than "I" when referring to the mess that is the Mets.

But the last four days have proven Stearns right about one thing.

"I understand there's no magic bullet, there's no one change that immediately is going to turn this around," Stearns said. "This is incremental, this is day-to-day."

Indeed. Every day provides incrementally more proof that David Stearns is the Mets' biggest problem.

Mets Familiar Woes Remain

The Mets have lost three of four games under interim manager Andy Green, the minor league director and former San Diego Padres manager skipper who has received the Cliff's Notes (ask your grandparents) version of the Mets' season-long woes.

The Mets aren't scoring a lot of runs (the 2-1 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays was their second 2-1 loss in four games). The pitching has actually been OK - the Mets have allowed 11 runs in the last four games, their best four-game performance since they went 4-0 while surrendering 11 runs from May 27-31.

But their starters have accounted for just 17 innings, a reminder the Mets' rotation consists of Nolan McLean (pitching tonight) and a lot of scotch tape. A team with a payroll north of $350 million utilized an opener Sunday, when Cionel Perez made his first "start" of a nearly decade-long career before Kodai Senga - whose 9.09 ERA is more than a run-and-a-half higher than the next highest ERA amongst pitchers who have thrown 30 innings this season - threw the final five frames and took the loss (of course) in his first career regular season relief appearance.

The good news? Senga's ERA dropped from 10.08. So there is that.

The Mets' defense (sorry, "run prevention") has also remained highlight reel-worthy for all the wrong reasons. They haven't produced another six-error game - here's to last Wednesday, when I knew things would go bad yet not THAT bad - but Juan Soto and A.J. Ewing playing George Springer's leadoff hit into the game-deciding Little League home run was as bad in its own way.

Then there are the unforced errors that are forever a part of the Mets' universe. Maybe Stearns can't do anything about Mr. Met gyrating behind a somber Steve Gelbs as the latter reports on Mendoza's firing during SNY's pregame show on Friday night. (You can bet he'd like to do something about it)

But as the president of baseball operations overseeing the entire organization, maybe Stearns can put together a slide show on how not to hit your teammate in the on-deck circle.

But hey, at least this worst team money can buy has its own version of Vince Coleman whacking Dwight Gooden in the pitching shoulder with a golf club. (Please, for the love of all that is holy, keep these Mets away from firecrackers this week)

Is The Mets' Foundation Good?

There are politicians looking at Stearns' approval ratings amongst Mets fans and saying, "Phew, it could be worse."

Yet the great thing about sports, as Jim Dolan can attest, is once you win, nobody cares how poorly you performed beforehand.

But can Stearns actually turn the Mets into a championship contender? The Knicks doing so under Dolan means anything is possible, but Stearns isn't an owner, and he's halfway through a five-year deal that has gone terribly wrong at every visible junction.

"I believe that we are building the foundation of an organization that can deliver what we all want," Stearns said Friday. "I don't believe that our record on the field this year is indicative of some of the advancements that we've made."

People who track the Mets' minor league system say the organization is in better shape than it was when Stearns arrived. And the emergence of Ewing and Carson Benge as good everyday outfielders - even if Ewing started the year at Double-A and was promoted in May as part of Stearns' last-ditch efforts to save the season - is evidence that something is going right within player development.

Per Baseball-Reference, Ewing and Benge have combined for 2.6 in WAR this season. The trio of Francisco Alvarez, Brett Baty and Mark Vientos, who made up the previous generation's Baby Mets, have combined for just 6.4 career WAR.

The Milwaukee Brewers, whom Stearns ran from 2015 through 2022, are on their way to yet another NL Central title with six Stearns draftees or international free agent signings amongst their top 12 players.

But with all due respect to those Brewers and the overall idea of player development, nobody wants to hear about the Mets' foundation when the rest of the house is falling apart and on fire. The Mets are on pace to finish in last place with their most losses since 2003, the first full season in which the Wilpons had sole ownership of the Mets.

Another way to put it: For all intents and purposes, the Mets were never this bad with the Wilpons - self-professed baseball experts who have terrible taste in money managers - at the helm.

"Clearly, what we are building only matters if you succeed at the major league level," Stearns said in one of his few inarguable statements Friday. "Major league level is what matters. Wins and losses at the major league level, at the end of the day, is what this is all about. That's why I'm here. And we need to get better there."

David Stearns' Disastrous Winter Continues To Haunt The Mets

There's that whole I/we thing again. Even when Stearns is right, he lapses into non-accountable corporate speak.

And it's long past time to assign blame for the Mets' current big league plight to anyone but Stearns, who has made building a big league club that competes for one of the 12 playoff spots with a payroll north of $350 million much more difficult than it appears.

Some of the Stearns acolytes on Twitter insist this season is four-dimensional chess, preparing for the Mets' potential salary cap era. But there was a way to dump the remainder of Brandon Nimmo's contract and not be tied into Pete Alonso through 2030 without chasing 100 losses this season - especially given Stearns' reputation for finding talent on the margins in Milwaukee.

More MLB:

The 2018 Brewers, who made it to the seventh game of the NLCS, had just one homegrown player amongst their top 12 in WAR, per Baseball-Reference. Stearns' final team in 2022 had four homegrown players within the top 12.

Yet after two-and-a-half years with the Mets, Stearns' 81 outside acquisitions have combined for just 26.8 in major league WAR - and 8.8 of that has been accumulated by Juan Soto, who was a Steve Cohen purchase.

This season, Stearns has failed the Mets when they needed him most. The 22 players he signed or acquired last winter by Stearns have combined for -0.1 in big league WAR. That's sub-Blutarsky (again, ask your grandparents).

To replace Alonso, Nimmo and Jeff McNeil (a homegrown trio that combined for 72.0 WAR with the Mets, by the way), Stearns is spending $63 million of Cohen's money on Jorge Polanco, Marcus Semien and Luis Robert Jr., all of whom are on the injured list after generating -0.8 WAR.

For a fraction of that, Stearns could have signed Ryan O'Hearn, Ty Franco or Munetaka Murakami at first base to go along with Luis Arraez at second base and either Leody Tavares or the New York-proven Harrison Bader for centerfield.

Anyone can have a bad year, but this is three middling at best years in a row heading into an off-season that may forever transform how baseball teams are built.

It's a good sign for the future Mets that the current Brewers bear Stearns' fingerprints. But can Stearns continue developing the next generation of homegrown Mets stars if the next CBA includes some or all of the proposed draft and bonus system limitations proposed by owners? There will be no room for error on the player development side, which will only increase the pressure on Stearns to get it right with the bigger-name major league acquisitions.

"I think Andy, just by virtue of his experience both before he got here and during his time with the Mets, is going to bring something a little bit different," Stearns said Friday. "And I think for us, it was time to try something a little different."

Stearns can begin by doing something a little different and start doing his job a lot better.

Related: Ten New York Mets alums who belong in the team Hall of Fame

Copyright 2026 The Arena Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

This story was originally published June 30, 2026 at 5:08 PM.

Get unlimited digital access
#ReadLocal

Try 1 month for $1

CLAIM OFFER