Reese Kaplan -- David Stearns Again Sitting on His Hands

On June 23rd the Mets announced that they were finally addressing the non-existent offense that has plagued the team all year long by claiming DFA’d Jared Oliva from the Giants.  Mr. Oliva is a guy best known for his legs, having provided as many as 37 SBs in a season while toiling for nine years in the minors.  As a major leaguer he owns a .175 career batting average.  Yup, he’s the answer David Stearns thinks will be a difference maker on the last place Mets. 

Obviously no one expects the now 30 year old Oliva to morph into an All Star but that is indeed the problem here.  The Mets can’t hit.  The Mets can’t pitch.  The Mets often can’t field (remember the narrative about run prevention?).  They do have a few folks who can run and Oliva was added to the 40-man roster but sent to swipe bases in Syracuse.  It was a filler move, not a substantial one.

The question people should be asking what exactly is the plan to change things?  Now we can’t hold David Stearns accountable for things like Clay Holmes’ fractured fibula, but when he reached out to acquire guys with well known chronic health issues like Luis Robert and Jorge Polanco you have to wonder about his hope-for-the-best strategy in finding lightning in a bottle rather than acquiring players likely to remain on the field and to provide positive at bats regularly.

Of course, there are guys who stayed healthy but simply did not perform as expected such as Freddy Peralta.  Given his $8 million salary in his walk year and the less than stellar output from the resources traded away to get him it’s not quite as bad as it could have been, but again you have to question scouting and player evaluation when this kind of transitional torturous trajectory happens again and again.

Need more proof?

Let’s see...there is nice guy and baseball pro Marcus Semien earning an awful lot of money to hit just .219.  He’s been an All Star three times, won two Gold Gloves and two Silver Sluggers.  These achievements, unfortunately, happened when he was younger than the age 35 at which he’s playing his initial season as a New York Met.

A bit harder to understand is career .290 hitter Bo Bichette who has had to turn red hot of late to rally all the way up to .248 for which he’s being compensated in the $42 million range to not hit as expected and to field more like Mark Vientos than he does like Brett Baty.  David Stearns gave him the oddball contract with opt out clauses that likely won’t be exercised because no one things .248 hitters are worth that kind of payroll hit. 

How about former David Stearns Brewers closer Devin Williams?  The fact is that on paper he seemed like a less expensive high quality replacement for Edwin Diaz.  In fact, for his career he owns a 2.63 ERA vs. 2.91 for Diaz.  Given his decidedly less expensive contract and better track record for staying off the IL it seemed a good move.  Unfortunately he’s tallied a 4.81 ERA thus far for the Mets so he too falls into that bucket of players with poorer performance than expected. 

In the previous year David Stearns did absolutely nothing to deal with the mess until the trade deadline period happened and apparently that is again his method of operation when things in 2026 are even worse.  No one knows who will stay and who will go but isn’t it the job of anyone in senior management in any kind of business to take corrective actions early enough to have an impact on results rather than finding more Oliva types?

Word did arrive late Wednesday night that the club had made its first major league personnel change of the 2026 season when they agreed to send free agent to be David Peterson to the Cubs for a low average slugging first base prospect.  This deal was not as much about what Cole Mathis can bring to the Mets but more of a classic addition by subtraction type of deal receiving a roll of the dice prospect for a non-essential and non-productive starting pitcher who would be gone for nothing at year's end anyway.  With Christian Scott due back shortly it doesn't appear as if losing Peterson will create any major reengineering of the starting rotation.