2 current NY Mets contracts David Stearns wouldn’t have offered, 1 he would have

If David Stearns got to the New York Mets a year earlier, how much differently would they look? A shrewder baseball executive than Billy Eppler who seemed to take the all-you-can-eat idea literally, we can look at some of the current contracts on the books and see how much differently our current President of Baseball Operations would have done things.

Stearns, obviously, isn’t opposed to spending Steve Cohen’s money. Juan Soto’s recording-breaking deal confirmed that. What about some other current deals? Two look like ones he would have preferred not to add. One, on the other hand, seems exactly like the type of contract he’d willingly hand out.

Would David Stearns have signed Brandon Nimmo to his current contract?

Stearns would have done a lot to sign Brandon Nimmo. He was and remains an incredibly popular player. At the time of his free agency, he was coming off of arguably the best season of his career. He stayed healthy for the full season with a good batting average, OBP, and power numbers to go with it.

However, Nimmo was about to embark on his age 30 campaign. A good center fielder for two straight years for the Mets, his performance has dipped over these last two seasons. Would Stearns have seen the possibility of Nimmo moving back to left field coming and decided against a $162 million and 8-year commitment?

For sure, Stearns would have found some other plan than to sign Starling Marte the previous offseason to be the center fielder and then not play him there and then do the same with Nimmo only for him to slot in at a corner spot after one season. The Marte contract at four years is more in-line with what Stearns has done. The contract expires after the 2025 season and he hadn’t shown any signs of slowing down prior to joining the Mets. In fact, until late in 2022 with New York he was putting up great numbers. He was even an All-Star.

Such a lengthy deal with Nimmo that’ll take him through his age 37 campaign in 2030 seems a little too far-reaching than what Stearns would have done if he was in the driver’s seat at the time. Maybe it’s different if Marte wasn’t here, too. The contracts are comparable with the difference being the Mets only got the latter half out of Marte while they get four additional years at the front with Nimmo.