Even the smartest guy in the room gets fooled sometimes. David Stearns’ New York Mets tenure has regularly shown how penetrable his decision-making skills are. Willing to take short-term risks, there have been multiple players who managed to bamboozle him in his three years.
Multiple players have failed to live up to their contracts, partly by design. There was never a chance Bo Bichette would be worth $42 million and that’s all right. The purpose was to use the owner’s wallet to keep Bichette around for fewer years with the incentive to play his way into a mammoth contract.
Bichette didn’t fool Stearns. We can’t even declare Freddy Peralta as a trickster. They get their own category of being disappointing. These other five Mets, meanwhile, definitely found some wool to pull over Stearns’ eyes.
The five Mets players who managed to fool David Stearns the most
5) Ryne Stanek
The Mets double-dipped with Ryne Stanek which was a part of their problem in 2025. They invited back a lot of the wrong players, Stanek not having the same injury excuse as Jesse Winker. It wasn’t so much the cost of Stanek as much as it was the performance in 2024 that should have had the Mets looking elsewhere. A 6.06 ERA in the regular season before a strong postseason wasn’t enough to declare him one-and-done in New York. Stanek somehow managed to survive through to the end of 2025 despite pitching to a 5.30 ERA. He has a knack for walking his way into trouble before allowing a hit.
4) Ryan Helsley
One of the team’s biggest failed trades, there were already warning signs Ryan Helsley wouldn’t be a success with the Mets. It’s always risky asking a closer to become a setup man. His 7.20 ERA never came down as he almost immediately looked shaken while wearing blue and orange. A combination of walks and home runs doomed him as did a fastball that batters would end up hitting .422 against in 2025. Jesus Baez was the headliner of what the Mets sent the St. Louis Cardinals. He mashed 39 home runs and drove in 109 in the minors this past year.
3) Jorge Polanco
The deception here is incomplete because Jorge Polanco has the injury excuse. And yet, with a track record of being hurt, Stearns should have known better. Polanco didn’t have the same exciting upside as Luis Robert Jr. with the tormenting consistency at landing on the IL. He lands on this list instead because Polanco was all a part of a bigger picture. Robert didn’t cost the Mets much and was essentially a salary dump. Polanco was meant to be an offensive replacement in some capacity due to the loss of Pete Alonso and Brandon Nimmo, more directly related to the latter but at a different position. Unable to play the field or even do much damage at all offensively when he was off the IL, this square peg for a round hole has a chance to swing drastically in one direction or another based on the 2027 results.
2) Sean Manaea
Sean Manaea hasn’t been nearly as bad as several others on this list. However, giving him $75 million over three years has aged badly and he, as much as anyone, fits the description of someone who hoodwinked the POBO. Manaea was so effective for the 2024 Mets that they couldn’t resist inviting him back. Absent for about half of 2025 and not so good when he was on the field, he was slightly better in 2026 yet hardly worth his contract. Manaea’s strong second half in one season and postseason created an expensive piece the Mets don’t need in the rotation or bullpen.
1) Frankie Montas
This signing never made sense. At $17 million for one year with a player option of the same for the second season, Frankie Montas takes the cake as the Mets player who managed to fool Stearns the most into thinking he was something he wasn’t. Health issues played a role with Montas only tossing 38.2 innings in the middle of the season in between a spring training injury and Tommy John surgery. A 6.28 ERA for less than three dozen innings for the cost of $34 million makes him one of the most wasteful free agent signings in recent memory.
