NY Mets had their chance to be more like the Brewers long before David Stearns

One of the biggest questions when the New York Mets hired David Stearns back in October of 2023 was how much influence he'd bring from the Milwaukee Brewers. The NL's thriftiest team has often stunned the baseball world with what it has been able to do on a shoestring budget.

We're through two offseasons and entering the third, and some things have become clear. Stearns is clearly gun-shy about spending big for free-agent starting pitchers, something that may be his own closely-held belief, but also may be heavily influenced by his experience trying to do more with less back in Milwaukee.

Stearn's constant tinkering with the bottom of the roster is another clear trait brought over from Milwaukee, though he hasn't been quite as successful (yet) at finding diamonds in the rough. With all that, though, the Mets had an opportunity to become more like the Brewers well before Stearns came into the picture, with the aborted pursuits of Matt Arnold and Pat Murphy for past openings.

Long before David Stearns, the Mets could have emulated the Brewers if they had landed Matt Arnold and Pat Murphy

Brewers executives were a Mets target at a particularly chaotic time for the club. Back in 2021, the Mets were eyeing David Stearns for the open lead baseball executive role, but also had their sights set on his right-hand man, Matt Arnold.

Ultimately, they'd strike out on Arnold as the Brewers somewhat surprisingly denied them permission to speak to him, despite the move being a promotion. Arnold would eventually succeed Stearns and would win the MLB's Executive of the Year award in 2024. On October 23 of this year, he was promoted by the Brewers in a move that was largely ceremonial and designed to give him a more elevated title, thus making him more difficult for a rival club to poach.

As for the manager's chair, once upon a time, that could've gone to current Brewers manager Pat Murphy. Murphy interviewed with the Mets for their open managerial position back in 2019 when he had been serving as Craig Counsell's bench coach for the previous for years in Milwaukee.

This time, it was the Mets who ultimately said no, instead hiring Buck Showalter to replace the dismissed Luis Rojas. Showalter would only last two seasons in New York before giving way to the at times controversial Carlos Mendoza.

Murphy took the reins of the Brewers after the 2023 season and took home NL Manager of the Year honors for his performance in 2024. In two seasons at the helm, he boasts a .586 winning percentage. For comparison's sake, Carlos Mendoza owns a .531 winning percentage over the same time period.

It's hard to tell whether or not the Mets would be better off if things had gone a different way with Arnold and Murphy. As David Stearns has learned, Queens is much different than Milwaukee, with a bigger budget and a much higher level of scrutiny. Given how closely Arnold worked with Stearns, one would have to imagine their philosophies at the helm of the Mets wouldn't be much different.

The one that might hurt more is not hiring Murphy. With less talent on paper, the Brewers' skipper has gotten more out than what Mendoza's been able to squeeze from his star-studded roster.

At the end of the day, these two franchises will be linked for some time, and revisiting this thought exercise from time to time will be interesting to determine what could have been, and are the Mets truly better off for their choices.