1 past, 1 present, 1 future NY Mets mistake made by David Stearns hurting most

A front office executive’s tenure is not solely defined by the mistakes – some great moves are just as era-defining. But every general manager and president of baseball operations (POBO) has fumbled a handful of decisions along the way.

Sure enough, through 2+ seasons as the New York Mets’ POBO, David Stearns has made his fair share of mistakes (partially balanced with some big wins) that will define his era in charge.

As the man leading the Mets’ front office, Stearns and his moves are under an especially intense microscope. Not only is he working in the New York market, but he joined the Mets as a highly respected baseball mind after his success with the Milwaukee Brewers. And as a childhood Mets fan, he has admitted he faces even more additional pressure from those in his personal life scrutinizing his decisions.

Over his first 56 months in charge of the Mets, there have been a few key decisions that stand out among Stearns’ biggest blunders as the team’s POBO. These two decisions – plus one possible future mistake – define the past and present (and a possible future) of Stearns’ tenure as New York’s top executive.

Mistakes from the past, present and future that could define Mets’ David Stearns era

The Mets’ fumbled 2025 trade deadline can’t hurt the team anymore

Even though the aftereffects of the 2025 trade deadline largely haven’t trickled into 2026, some of the failures of last year’s late-season tumble still sting in hindsight. Stearns’ decisions ahead of the trade deadline last July were among the multitude of reasons the Mets ended up missing the postseason by one game.

By the time the 2025 MLB trade deadline passed on July 31, the Mets had acquired four notable players in the leadup to the midseason cutoff: relievers Gregory Soto, Tyler Rogers and Ryan Helsley, plus outfielder Cedric Mullins. All four of them were markedly worse with the Mets to close out the 2025 season than they had been with their previous team through the first half of the year.

Of the four acquisitions, the biggest mistakes in hindsight were Helsley and Mullins. The former struggled with pitch tipping after he got to New York. Helsley left the St. Louis Cardinals with 21 saves and a 3.00 ERA in 36 games. With the Mets, he didn’t save any games – he blew four saves – and had a 7.20 ERA across 22 outings.

Meanwhile, Mullins, whom the Mets added to give their lineup more depth, went from the best OPS he had had since his 2021 All-Star season – .738 in 91 games with the Orioles – to what was the worst mark of his career since 2019 (.565) in 42 games with the Mets. Though his walk rate rose from his first half in Baltimore, his average dipped below the Mendoza line and his power dried up.

Bo Bichette’s three-year contract is a bad look for the 2026 Mets

Bichette was a top-four free agent on the market this offseason, according to MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand. The former Blue Jay led the American League in hits in 2021 and 2022. In 2025, he led the league in hits again before a knee injury ended his season prematurely. When the postseason came, he returned in time for the World Series and hit what was nearly one of the biggest home runs in Blue Jays history in Game 7.

After a hot pursuit for top free agent hitter Kyle Tucker, Stearns and the Mets made a shocking pivot to ink Bichette to a three-year, $126 million deal after Tucker spurned them for the Dodgers. Bichette’s deal with the Mets included a commitment from the former shortstop to move to third base and opt outs after each of the first two years of his contract. At $42 million per year, Bichette’s contract was the second richest of the offseason, behind only Tucker’s deal with the Dodgers.

And so far, through the Mets’ first 59 games, Bichette is on pace for the worst season in his eight-year MLB career. He’s slashing .219/.275/.308 with a .583 OPS – all would be career lows in a full season. Worst of all, the clutch factor Bichette showed off in his seven years in Toronto has evaporated in the first third of his first season with the Mets. The career .300 hitter in “high leverage” situations and .321 hitter with RISP, both per FanGraphs, is hitting .240 in high leverage spots and just .196 with RISP so far in 2026.

What’s both good and bad for the Mets long term is that Bichette might be the victim of poor luck through the early season. Through 59 games, Bichette’s BABIP is just .249 – which would also be a career low – and his expected slugging percentage of .428 per StatCast is 120 points higher than his actual slugging percentage. He’s still hitting the ball hard, it’s just finding gloves more than grass.

That’s good because Bichette still has more than 100 games to turn things around. That’s bad because Bichette could play well enough down the stretch to warrant opting out of his contract to hit the free agent market again. He would get an additional $5 million buyout in that situation to take home $47 million from the Mets after just one season in New York.

Of course, if that late-season resurgence correlates with more New York wins and a deep playoff run, the Mets will be happy with their investment. We still need to wait and see how Bichette’s deal turns out, but it definitely seems to be hurting more than helping New York as the calendar flips to June.

David Stearns can’t avoid addressing Mets’ rotation woes this offseason

Through three offseasons as the Mets’ top decision-maker, Stearns has shied away from addressing the starting rotation with big splashes (read: long-term deals) in free agency.

On one hand, that could be considered a financially sound decision. Many of the free agent pitchers who sign megadeals in the offseason are among those who are also most prone to injuries. In the modern era of high velocity and high spin rate, chasing higher numbers often means putting one’s arm health at risk.

Looking around recent MLB deals, there are a couple of examples of big deals for starting pitchers that quickly aged poorly. Jacob deGrom’s deal with the Texas Rangers is one example: he got five years, $185 million and then made just nine starts in his first two seasons. Another is Stephen Strasburg’s massive extension with the Washington Nationals after his 2019 World Series MVP performance. His deal for seven years and $245 million ended up including just eight starts with a 6.89 ERA before he retired, in part due to a plethora of injuries, in 2023.

On the other hand, though, Stearns’ failure to push past injury concerns to land a big-name free agent starter has put the Mets in a bind for the last two seasons. Poor performance by incumbents David Peterson and Kodai Senga down the stretch last year pushed the Mets to lean on late-season call-ups Nolan McLean and Jonah Tong in limited starts. This year, both Peterson and Senga have struggled once again. Add in Sean Manaea, whose velocity dip pushed him into a bullpen role to start the year, and the Mets were suddenly scrambling for rotation help by April, when they called up Christian Scott.

The counterpoint to the deGrom and Strasburg situations are the cases of pitchers like Gerrit Cole and Max Fried. They’re the two starting pitchers that signed massive deals across town, and though they’ve dealt with their own injury troubles, they anchor the top of the Yankees’ starting rotation when healthy. The Bronx Bombers have enjoyed playoff berths in five of the six seasons since they signed Cole, and that’s not really a coincidence.

Next offseason, Stearns may need to consider heeding the wise words of Dodgers POBO Andrew Friedman: “If you're always rational about every free agent, you will finish third on every free agent.” While the Mets have their share of top pitching prospects they may be able to lean on this year and beyond, Stearns should be supplementing the rest of the rotation with top-end, reliable veteran arms to avoid more disastrous rotation issues. After all, not every top prospect will turn out to be the next deGrom.

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