3 habits NY Mets fans wish David Stearns would break in order to make 2026 a success

The New York Mets will not be playing October baseball in 2025. Despite a fantastic 2024 run that seemed like the foundation of the next baseball dynasty, a record-breaking contract given to a generational star in Juan Soto, and an enormous $341 million payroll, the club ended the season with a very pedestrian 83-79 record and lost the tie-breaker to the Cincinnati Reds for the final NL Wild Card spot.

A post-mortem on the season will reveal a lot of flaws and blame to go around. Carlos Mendoza made some questionable decisions. Some key players underperformed. The injury bug played a role. But the catalyst for everything that went wrong starts with the club's architect, David Stearms.

Stearns has a type. There are certain traits he looks for in players and certain rules that he strictly follows when making some of his decisions. He has some staunch and unbending principles. Yet some of his habits were the chief reason he built a roster that failed, and they're philosophies he'll need to reexamine this offseason in order to set up the 2026 season for success.

David Stearns needs to break these three habits in order for the Mets to have a successful 2026 campaign

1. Lay off signing injury prone starters

By the end of the season, the Mets' starting rotation featured three prospects getting their first tastes of big league action, a converted reliever, and David Peterson. Not exactly the look you want as you're fighting for your playoff life down the stretch.

Last offseason, the club knew it had several rotation spots to fill, and already had one key cog as a prime injury risk in Kodai Senga, who was coming off a 2024 campaign that was largely lost due to injury. Senga also had a history of missing time in Japan, meaning it should have been clear that 2024 wasn't a fluke occurrence.

That would have made one think that Stearns would have prioritized durability in the moves he made to fill out the rotation. Instead, he went the opposite route, signing oft-injured arms like Frankie Montas and Griffin Canning.

Perhaps his confidence was boosted by the way Luis Severino, another often unavailable starter, worked out in 2024. Or perhaps it was his upbringing in the Milwaukee Brewers organization, where stretching a dollar is the ultimate goal, and he forgot he was backed by the deepest pockets in the game.

Whatever the case, Stearns needs to be more concerned with health and durability when evaluating starting pitchers moving forward. If not, more collapses could be in the club's future.

2. Stop strictly adhering to ideal player archetypes

When it comes to the position player side of things, Stearns has some strong preferences for which traits he wants where. At first base, the prototypical slugger is his desired blueprint, which Pete Alonso fits to a tee.

Alonso, of course, wasn't a problem this season. In fact, he was one of the club's brightest lights. But that doesn't mean strictly defining which traits belong at which positions is a solid strategy, and you need to look no further than center field to see why.

In center, Stearns clearly preferred the prototypical glove first ideal. A player with speed and athleticism to make plays, and whose offensive contributions are secondary to what he can provide as the outfield's general. As a result, New York's center fielders posted a collective .209/.283/.314 line. The unit's 71 wRC+ ranked 27th in the majors and ensured that a black hole was present in the lineup every night.

Despite the emphasis on defense with the likes of Tyrone Taylor and Jose Siri, and then later Cedric Mullins, the team ranked just 21st in outs above average, with three. In total, Mets' center fielders combined for a total of 0.7 fWAR, which was the fifth-fewest in the league at the position.

Going into the year with the duo of Taylor and Siri might have been a fine experiment, but it clearly didn't work. However, instead of pivoting to a different strategy, Stearms traded for Cedric Mullins, which brought about more of the same.

Imagine instead how different things might have been if Stearns had targeted a different Orioles outfielder to man center down the stretch. Mullins' former teammate, Ramon Laureano, might not be regarded as a regular center fielder anymore, but he does have experience at the position. His .812 OPS post-trade line helped lift the San Diego Padres to a playoff berth, while Mullins' .569 OPS as a Met was an anchor that dragged the team down.

3. Stop being so averse to handing out long-term contracts for top-end starters

One of the tenets of Stearn's philosophy is to avoid giving out long-term deals to starters. In a perfect world, it seems he'd settle for one-year deals every time, though the market dictates that he get creative with options, or go up to three years, as was the case with Sean Manaea.

This seems to be another learned behavior from his time with the Brewers, and limits him to the mid-tier market in terms of starting pitchers. That can sometimes work out, as we saw with the 2024 version of Manaea, but it limits the upside.

Moving forward, Stearns needs to be open to the idea of handing out long-term contracts to starters who are true aces. One needs to look no further than the Bronx for an example of how breaking the bank for a top-of-the-rotation starter can work out.

The Yankees might be where the Mets are today if not for Max Fried, who signed an eight-year, $218 million contract last offseason. Fried is 31, so the Yankees know the last couple of years of that deal will be rough. They signed it anyway. Why? Because if it results in a ring or two before the wheels fall off, then it will all have been worth it.

Stearns needs to recognize that his organization has the financial wherewithal to withstand a contract or two that age poorly. That is the case with the Soto contract, but with starting pitching being so essential to playoff success, he needs to extend that logic to the guys on the mound too.