Reese Kaplan -- The Last Big Selloff Was a Stearns Disaster

I only know of one loyal Mets fan who seems perfectly accepting of all that has been done and not done by the Mets front office while disregarding the outcome of those very poor decisions.  The vast majority of people are reacting like they would in any business environment.  When something doesn’t work a plan evolves to address the issues at hand.  

While all of us somewhere deep inside feel that David Stearns is a solid baseball professional who knows what he’s doing, the fact remains that his decisions have imploded spectacularly and not a damned thing has been done to change the ownership of the cellar despite the season being more than half gone already. 

A great many of us want to go to the other extreme — blowing up the vast majority of the roster and repopulating the team with current and newly obtained minor leaguers who could at least show us people who might evolve into steady performers.  The Mets have allegedly named Nolan McLean, Christian Scott, Zac Thornton, Juan Soto, Carson Benge and A.J. Ewing as untouchable with everyone else available for the right price.  The question now to consider is what return offer would be fair enough to have current Mets changing uniforms.

Think back now to the 2023 sell off and realize that it was not exactly what everyone envisioned when it happened.  The Mets wound up paying $88 million of the remaining contracts for Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander.  That’s a lot of coin to expunge players from your current roster unless the returns gotten are significant.

Hmmn....

Well, for Scherzer the Mets got the Rangers to give up Ronald Acuna’s younger brother who has since moved on to the south side of Chicago to bring back another unneeded and expensive player in Luis Robert, Jr.  That didn’t exactly work out spectacularly.

It must have been better for Verlander, right?  Well, in exchange for him the Mets got now former Met Drew Gilbert and slugging strikeout machine Ryan Clifford.  While Verlander has not exactly been the prime time star he once was, it’s pretty safe to say that for the money spent and the one prospect/suspect remaining that the Astros got the better end of that deal, too.

But they were not done.  The Mets also sent stellar reliever David Robertson to the Marlins for a pair of players, Ronald Hernandez and Marco Vargas.  The now 22 year old Hernandez is hitting .221 with 7 HRs and 33 RBIs, not exactly prospective All Star material.  The 21 year old Vargas is slightly north of the Mendoza line but the feedback is that he’s better than what the current numbers are showing.

But they still made more moves.  Tommy Pham went to bring back .228 hitting shortstop Jeremy Rodriguez.  Meh.

Then they sent outfielder Mark Canha off to the Brewers for pitcher Justin Jarvis who has since been released.

Finally they shipped Dominic Leone off to obtain infielder Jeremiah Jackson who is also no longer with the Mets.

So, to recap the Mets spent $88 million and have only Ryan Clifford, Ronald Hernandez, Marco Vargas and Jeremy Rodriguez to show for sending away two potential Hall of Famers in Scherzer and Verlander, plus Robertzon, Pham, Canha and Leone. 

Now fast forward to 2026 and consider what, if anything, should David Stearns do?  He obviously has not had a good track record in midyear selloffs nor did he create a winning roster after last year’s disappointment.  Still, there are a number of players who can and probably should be moved even if the returns are highly unpredictable.  

The only difference this time around is that they have publicly said they are not looking to pay down the current salaries. 

Here’s to wishful thinking.