New York Mets 2025 Season



If it wasn’t for Stearns, we’d be five games out of the wild card
How so?

Stearns signed the albatross known as Frankie Montas
Stearns brought back the growing albatross of Sean Manaea
Stearns “fortified” the bullpen with Ryan Helsley who is working up the ladder as one of the worst deadline moves the Mets have ever made.
Stearns brought in Cedric Mullins who has been terrible.

I could go on. To be fair I am NOT calling for his head…yet. But the whole Stearns walks on water is a real question. We can’t act like we have a $350m dollar payroll and the GM who had amazing resources can’t get us in the playoffs?

We are not there yet let’s see what happens. However, everyone and everything should be looked at when and if the post mortem happens.
 
How so?

Stearns signed the albatross known as Frankie Montas
Stearns brought back the growing albatross of Sean Manaea
Stearns “fortified” the bullpen with Ryan Helsley who is working up the ladder as one of the worst deadline moves the Mets have ever made.
Stearns brought in Cedric Mullins who has been terrible.

I could go on. To be fair I am NOT calling for his head…yet. But the whole Stearns walks on water is a real question. We can’t act like we have a $350m dollar payroll and the GM who had amazing resources can’t get us in the playoffs?

We are not there yet let’s see what happens. However, everyone and everything should be looked at when and if the post mortem happens.
He was also responsible for signing Canning, who was a revelation and carried the rotation during the team's peak, and Holmes, who has somehow been the most steady of the veteran pitchers in our rotations -- two moves that most GMs wouldn't even think about.

Rogers has been very valuable for the bullpen, Raley was a creative/smart signing in 2025 (paying him to rehab, basically). A lot of the periphery signings were pretty good wins, which culminate into a big win: Kranick, Warren, Hagenmann, Waddell, Devenski, Garcia, Castillo.

Stearns also deserves credit for not panic trading for Merrill Kelly or Charlie Morton. That would've probably cost Sproat, and blocked our other young arms.

Stearns also deserves credit for getting Soto. He helped give Soto confidence about organizational stability and smarts. We'd be fucked without Soto.

Think of where we'd be if we had typical Mets pitching depth. We'd be a disaster.

I have a hard time fully blaming Stearns on Senga and Manaea. Both had injuries and sidetracked them, especially Manaea. It's tough luck. I do think though, next year, it would be foolish to count on Senga for anything more than a backend rotation spot. Way too finicky and injury prone.

Montas deal didn't work out, but we only have it for one more year. Sucks, but if you look at every other deal in that stratsphere, almost none of them worked out. It's why hte young pitching coming through is so important. Helsley and Mullins have been an abomination, but I personally think the crux of the team's issues is who Stearns inherited: Lindor being basically horrific for a solid 7 week stretch, Vientos being awful for half the year, Senga/Manaea being injured and not playing well, and the other core guys (Nimmo, McNeil, etc) being poor defenders.

I do think next year, he has more responsibility to fix more things with the position players.
 
I agree with DK, Stearns isn't batting 1.000 but he has done a lot of things that have panned out. And even with injuries plaguing the starting rotation, which I desperately wanted to acquire deadline help for, Stearns didn't panic because he must have knew he was ready to give McLean, Sproat and Tong spots in the big leagues. There is a move or two that I don't like, but if we miss the playoffs or flame out of the wild card quickly, I won't be pinning this season on him at all.

My fingers are getting pointed right at Mendoza and the core of this team. Coming into this season, I considered the core of this team Lindor, Alonso, Soto, Nimmo, Vientos and Alvarez (I'd add McNeil now, but I didn't know what to expect from him coming into the year)

This group above, they need to lead the way and keep spirits high in that locker room. Granted, I am not in the locker room, but I watch us almost every night for months now. The team feels emotionally dead. It feels like there isn't much care or accountability. I don't get a sense that this team likes each other which is surprising too. This could all just be incorrect fan speculation from the outside looking in. But even though most of our core guys have had perfectly fine statistical seasons, we are missing a personality as a team, which is especially disappointing right now because we had SO much of that last year. In a long baseball season, with ups and downs, that stuff matters. Does this team have the personality to pick themselves off the mat, grab a couple in philly, and then hold onto the wild card spot over the next couple weeks? I guess we will find out
 
Stearns got good players at the deadline and didn't lose any top prospects. Helsley was an above average player in STL and nobody could have known he can't pitch in NY. Stearns was brought in to create a team like he put together in Milwaukee and mirror the LAD.

He didn't trade any of the big 3 pitchers for some kind of quick hit. Can't blame him for the bad and not give him credit for the good. Unless your a politician...
 
Using ESPN's Cy Young tracker for AL:
Tarik Skubal, Detroit Tigers (146 AXE)
Garrett Crochet, Boston Red Sox (139)
Hunter Brown, Astros (135)
Nathan Eovaldi, Rangers
Trevor Rogers, Baltimore Orioles
Framber Valdez, Astros
Joe Ryan, Twins
Max Fried, Yankees
Aroldis Chapman, Red Sox
Michael Wacha, Royals
Drew Rasmussen, Tampa Bay Rays

Only starters who have gone to free agency, ever, is Eovaldi, Fried, and Wacha. Eovaldi wanted to only stay in Texas, 35 y/o, and is already out for the year with an injury. Fried's second half has a 4.33 ERA and I think that contract will be a disaster later on. Wacha would qualify as a Stearns gamble if we got him.

NL:
Paul Skenes, Pittsburgh Pirates (142 AXE)
Cristopher Sanchez, Phillies (142)
Zack Wheeler, Phillies (131)
Freddy Peralta, Brewers
Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Dodgers
Nick Pivetta, Padres
Ranger Suarez, Phillies
Andrew Abbott, Cincinnati Reds
Logan Webb, San Francisco Giants
Jesus Luzardo, Phillies
Nick Lodolo, Reds

Only starters who went to free agency in this group were Wheeler, Yamamoto and Pivetta. Wheeler, we foolishly let walk under BVW/Wilpons. Yamamoto, we aggressively pursued. Pivetta, we wanted but would've qualified as a Stearns bargain bin.

It's hard to understate how important the development of Sproat, Mclean, and Tong is. That's where we will find our ace, not free agency (although I want us to go all-in for Skubal after next year anyway). Hopefully Santucci is next in line.
 
I have given Stearns plenty of credit. I am not calling for his head. I am questioning giving him all kinds of credit when the current team is a mess. The team is just 7 games over .500. At one point we were almost 20 games over. All that credit means ZERO if the team doesn’t perform. A bottom line business where W’s mean everything.

A team HE built. He spent $350m in fact. He was give all kinds of flexibility from a generous Owner. At no time did I hear the words NO from the Owner. Other GMs would love to have that level of support.

I do respect your opinion. However, he had a blank canvas and was given $350m wiggle room. We need to make the playoffs. No excuses.

Like I said we aren’t there yet as the playoffs have become the bare minimum. Missing the playoffs would be a TITANIC miss. It’ll be up to Steve Cohen as to how to proceed forward. I have a feeling that Cohen is not going to hold that level of payroll forever.

Hopefully, we “slip” into the playoffs and flip the script. Watching this team flop around that is getting less and less likely to believe.
 
I can't disagree more. This wasn't a blank canvas at all. He didn't really build this team. He inherited almost every position player, sans Soto and Siri/Taylor/Mullins/Torrens/Winker (another bust, but also a move applauded by everyone here). Also, he did sign Pete to a very smart one-year deal, but I won't give him "credit" for that (although I do). He had nothing to do with McNeil, Nimmo, Lindor, Alvarez, Baty, Acuna, Vientos, Maurico. The long/medium term contracts given out by prior regimes actually lock him in and don't offer flexibility.

Also, not to mention, he inherited Senga (an issue), Peterson (not an issue), and Diaz (not an issue, yet).
 
Only two games up in the Wild Card as of today. I believe the Giants have 7 of their next 11 games against the Dodgers. This is when we have to try and tighten our grip on this Wild Card spot because after that the Giants have their last 6 games at home and we have our last 6 on the road. Need a 3 game lead going into those last 6 games. Then even if we go 3-3 the Giants need to go 6-0 just to tie us.
 
This team is the best argument for Keith Hernandez to be in the HOF. He demanded that his teammates stay focused, played hard, and that winning was everything. Put him on this team and we'd have an 8 game lead.
 
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