Mets Sign Stearns To Massive Five-Year Deal
Update 9/13/2023:
Steve Cohen’s vast financial resources have helped land the Mets another big fish, this time in the front office. According to a report from NY Daily News’ Bill Madden on Wednesday, David Stearns’ deal with the Mets is for $10 million a season, which would tie him with the Dodgers’ Andrew Freidman for the highest salary in baseball for a president of baseball operations.
Original Post: 9/12/2023
Steve Cohen has landed his white whale.
The New York Mets have hired David Stearns as the team’s president of baseball operations, according to Andy Martino of SNY. He’s the first person hired to that role in Mets history. His contract is five-years long, according to Bob Nightengale of USA Today.
Stearns comes over from the Brewers, who he ran for seven seasons. He stepped away from his president of baseball operations role last offseason and remained in an advisory role in 2023 as he waited out his contract. However, Stearns reportedly could start talking to other teams after the trade deadline, and the Mets were likely first in line.
David Stearns, Photo by Mike De Sisti
The Mets have sought a president of baseball operations since Steve Cohen bought the team in late 2020. Though Sandy Alderson was brought on as team president to start Cohen’s ownership tenure, the end goal was always hiring a president to oversee the baseball side of things. What’s happened in the interim has been rocky at best.
After letting go of Brodie van Waganen as general manager, Cohen ultimately hired Jared Porter as general manager. Within five weeks, a report came out about Porter’s alleged sexual harassment of a reporter in his past roles. He was fired, and Zack Scott took his place for the 2021 season. Scott, however, was placed on administrative leave in September 2021 after he was charged with driving while intoxicated (DWI).
The Mets decided to part ways with Scott, and their search for a lead baseball decision-maker started again. Cohen and Alderson eventually landed on Billy Eppler, who’s run the team for the last two years. He’s overseen the massive acquisitions of the last two seasons, including Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Kodai Senga, Starling Marte, Mark Canha, and others. Through the hiring, Cohen was still adamant about hiring a president of baseball operations role. David Stearns was always on Cohen’s mind. (Eppler will reportedly remain the general manager—Stearns’ second in command.)
With Stearns, who is just 38 years old and grew up a Mets fan, the Mets will surely dive more into an analytical mindset–one that Steve Cohen has sought to overhaul since buying the team. He’s talked about wanting to be the Dodgers of the East. Now he’ll have one of the highest-regarded minds in baseball running his team, with a checkbook much larger than Stearns’ former team.
Stearns will take over a Mets team that starkly underperformed this year, but he doesn’t need to build the team from the ground up. Their MLB core features Francisco Lindor, Brandon Nimmo, Jeff McNeil, and Pete Alonso. (One of Stearns’ first tasks will likely be negotiating an extension with the slugger.)
He also has Francisco Álvarez, Brett Baty, Mark Vientos, and Ronny Mauricio who have MLB experience, and the farm system is in a much better place now that those four have (almost) graduated. Jett Williams, Drew Gilbert, Luisangel Acuña, Kevin Parada and Ryan Clifford are all Top 100–or at least borderline–prospects. The Mets recently fired multiple director-level baseball employees, so he’ll have a pretty clean slate within the organization.
The 2023 season was a dud, but this is the first time it feels like the Mets will be able to operate with a clear baseball vision from the top. The David Stearns era is underway.
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