Reese Kaplan -- Is David Stearns Feeling More Urgency in 2026

For many months fans and writers have quietly questioned some of the highly debatable moves made (or not made) by the Mets front office to address performance and the corresponding lackluster results on the field.  Nothing underscored the uneasy attitude by the media and by the people who want to see the Mets win ballgames more than the absolute cratering of the club last June which did not get any better as the year progressed.

Yes, after making bizarre roster moves such as Jose Siri for center field and Frankie Montas for the starting rotation, the club was beset with a raft of long term injuries that kept Sean Manaea, Kodai Senga and many others off the field.  During 2025 the methodology applied was to tread carefully over the sinking lifeboat until FINALLY at the end of July just before the year’s trading deadline David Stearns made some moves which, unfortunately, did not work out as expected.

Now flash forward to the 2026 season and the sleepwalking Mets team is not hitting, often not pitching, not fielding and not running as was envisioned during those run prevention meetings which were pontificating on what the new Stearns-designed Mets would do when the season actually began.  The current losing streak is in itself very tough to swallow as are the injuries that have kept Juan Soto and AJ Minter off the field while also addressing substandard performances by Jorge Polanco (himself dealing with injury), Francisco Lindor (slump or injury recovery) and overmatched rookie Carson Benge.  Let’s not forget expensive FA Bo Bichette who also has not exactly resembled the .317 hitter from 2025.

Unlike 2025, this time around Stearns is being a bit more proactive.  While he can’t do anything to speed up the recoveries of Soto and Minter, he can remove what isn’t working and replace those players with ones who hopefully can help contribute to wins which have long since not happened for this club. 

The first of these moves were to jettison the reunion no one wanted when Dicky Lovelady was given his long overdue DFA to open up a bullpen slot for future Hall of Famer Craig Kimbrel.  On paper at least this move makes an inordinate amount of sense and fixes a short term fill-in spot that was singlehandedly responsible for opposing teams’ batting averages and slugging percentages increasing significantly.

The second move was to cut loose another head scratching move when they signed veteran mediocre reliever Luis Garcia who now has been shown the exit door three weeks into the 2026 season.  Believe it or not, he was pitching even worse than was Lovelady.  Now his replacement, Joey Gerber, is another treading water maneuver while the club patiently awaits for news that AJ Minter is again ready to pitch regularly.  The now 28 year old Gerber has not had a bad albeit brief major league career, but he’s not likely going to contribute the 50-60 games the club would expect out of Minter.

The only offensive moves made thus far were a bit unusual.  When Soto hit the IL the thought was that the team would reach into AAA to retrieve an outfielder so that at least defensively the club would have another body ready to fill in when needed.  Instead infielder Ronny Mauricio was brought on board and after delivering a game winning hit for the club (remember when they last won a game?????), he was dumped to make room for 38 year old disgruntled reunion roster member Tony Pham.  As a career .248 hitter he’s not exactly going to contribute to run scoring in a big way, but perhaps the feeling here is that his aggressive attitude is being made a part of the clubhouse which heretofore has seemed ill prepared to tackle the challenges of professional play.

While none of these moves are alone going to fix all that has already gone wrong with the Mets roster and their on-the-field performance, it is at least a dim yet welcome light from the 2025 version of David Stearns who wasted more than half a year before making any effort to improve the club.  Chances are that Pham and other fringe ballplayers will be gone long after Bichette starts hitting and Juan Soto does what he does when fully healed. Still, with so little having gone right for Stearns since year one when the club made the playoffs.  Unfortunately 2025 and 2026 have been rapidly downhill from there so it is refreshing to see a bit of motivation to make changes coming from a guy who in the past has not shown this level of urgency.