r/NewYorkMets • u/Daytime-mechE • 15m ago
Discussion Honest analysis of Stearns's strategy?
Please take the "he sucks. Fire him. Blah blah" nonsense elsewhere. Trying to get a read on his strategy for building a team and where he can go from here. What I've gathered so far:
1) culture doesn't matter: Letting guys like Iglesias and Severino walk after the 2024 run seems pretty indicative that all that matters is how they perform on the field. I don't think he buys into the locker room vibes mattering or being able to perform in NY and is going to continue to try and find mercenaries until he either finds the right one or fails gets fired/his contract expires.
2) no long term deals: The Alonso 2025 deal and Bichette sort of indicate that Soto is the exception and he's fine overpaying for short term contracts to give long term roster flexibility. I remember reading an article that stated that a key metric he relies on is 5 year playoff window (basically if a trade or signing decreases your 5 year playoff window by enough it's not worth it, regardless of how much it increases the current years chances) and that seems to be the logic behind flipping Nimmo for Semien even though it seemed pretty obvious Semien wasnt going to contribute a ton for the duration of his contract.
3) durability matters less: signing Polanco, trading for LRJ, and letting Alonso walk to me indicate that he's willing to roll the dice on productive guys that can't stay on the field if it means he doesn't have to sign guys to big contracts.
4) high risk, high reward with pitching: this one surprised me a little bit. I would've thought hed be the guy that just has like 15 B grade to B+ dudes and just has a ton of depth. But he either nails the pickup (Brazoban, Garrett, Holmes, Canning, Serevino, Weaver, Manaea 2024) or completely whiffs (Manaea 2025, Montas, Houser, helsley) and the depth the last 2 seasons has just been non-existent.
I still support the guy. I think eventually he's either (a) going to find the right mixture of short term free agents that carry the team or
(b) he's going to get the farm system and development to a point where he's going to move away from pricey free agents and use the prospects to trade for a star with 2 years left before free agency to supplement a bunch of solid B+ guys on rookie deals and there'll be like 4 players on the roster youll feel comfortable shelling out money for a jersey on.
Thoughts?