The New York Mets are hiring David Stearns as their president of baseball operations, CBS Sports HQ has confirmed. In the position, Stearns will head up baseball operations for the Mets or, more succinctly, he'll run the team on the baseball side once the season comes to a close.
Stearns, 38, was born and raised in Manhattan before attending Harvard. He interned with the Pirates and then joined the Mets front office shortly after graduating from Harvard. He also had a stop in Cleveland and with the league office before joining the Astros in 2012. As part of that front office, he helped rebuild the Astros for the next three years. In September 2015, Stearns was hired as Brewers general manager.
Stearns was later promoted to president of baseball operations in 2019, then promoted Matt Arnold to work under him as GM in 2020. Last October, he announced that he was stepping down as club president and moving into an advisory role.
Here are five things to know about the Stearns hiring.
1. Impressive track record with small-budget Brewers
The Brewers were 68-94 in 2015 and then 73-89 the following year. They started to turn things around in 2017 and then Stearns took some big swings the following offseason, landing Christian Yelich in a trade and Lorenzo Cain in free agency, among other moves. The Brewers made the NLCS in 2018 in their first of four straight playoff seasons, a franchise record. They broke the streak last season, though they still had a winning record at 86-76 and are on track to make the playoffs again this season.
It's worth noting that the Brewers never ranked higher than 17th in Opening Day payroll under Stearns' watch.
2. Offseason focus to be determined
Stearns' task with the Mets is to continue building a young foundation for the big-league club. The team embarked on a big change this past July -- after a disappointing several months -- by trading Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Tommy Pham, David Robertson, Dominic Leone and Mark Canha.
Word is the team would like to get younger instead of paying hefty salaries for older veterans, but this won't be a radical rebuild with the likes of Francisco Lindor, Brandon Nimmo, Kodai Senga and Edwin Díaz locked up. Plus, Pete Alonso is a year away from free agency and surely the Mets want to keep him as part of the core.
One would assume that in grabbing a talented, young executive like Stearns in a mega-market and with the deep pockets of owner Steve Cohen, the blueprint would be the Dodgers when they hired Andrew Friedman from the Rays. To eventually combine a deep and talented farm system with a high-priced and incredibly talented big-league roster is the easy and obvious goal. That leads to consistent winning and multiple chances at a World Series title with the same nucleus -- that would be a departure from the norm for the Mets (as you'll see below).
The question, though, is whether Stearns will make a splash this winter -- perhaps by pursuing Shohei Ohtani, or other available stars. We'll find out soon enough.
3. Consistently competing has been rare for Mets
With all the resources the Mets have access to, they've never been a consistent playoff team. They've made the postseason in consecutive years just twice (1999-2000 and 2015-16) and have never gone three straight seasons. After the 101-win season last year, they were bounced from the wild-card round and followed it up with this disappointing effort in 2023. This latest failure triggered the belief that the Mets needed a major, impact move in the front office and Stearns is that man.
4. Eppler expected to remain
You might wonder what Stearns' arrival means for Billy Eppler, previously the Mets' top baseball operations decision maker. Passan reports that Eppler is expected to continue to serve as the general manager, albeit moving down to the No. 2 in command on that side of things. Eppler was originally named the Mets GM back in November 2021.
5. Showalter's future to be determined
Compared to Eppler, there hasn't been as much reported about what the future holds for manager Buck Showalter, whose contract runs through the 2024 season, but teams tend to avoid entering lame-duck situations, meaning they often look to move on from or extend a manager before they enter the final year of their deals. (There are always exceptions.) In what's certain to become a point of speculation between now and whenever the Mets finalize their managerial plans, we'll note that Stearns' old Brewers manager, Craig Counsell, is expected to become a free agent this winter.
