Why David Stearns escaped Steve Cohen's axe after NY Mets fired Carlos Mendoza

In a move that has long seemed inevitable, the New York Mets have relieved manager Carlos Mendoza of his duties, turning to Andy Green (a former MLB manager with the Padres) to fill the role on an interim basis.

There's no denying that Mendoza didn't do a good enough job this year. At the time of his dismissal, the Mets are 34-47, deep in the cellar of the NL East. That record in the third-worst in the entire Senior Circuit, putting New York closer to the company of the Rockies and Giants rather than the Braves and Phillies.

Mendoza, who was serving out a lame-duck year on his contract anyway, simply couldn't resuscitate a team that was dead on arrival. Green, who presided over a long rebuild in San Diego, almost certainly won't be able to find enough lifeboats to get everyone off this sinking ship either.

But that begs the question: Why is David Stearns safe in all of this? He's the one who put this moribund roster together. Shouldn't he have to answer for these failures as well?

Impending MLB lockout likely shielding David Stearns from Mets' housecleaning

It's not a satisfying answer, but the impending 2027 lockout is sure to play a big factor in any front office decisions over the next six months.

No one is quite sure what form it will take, but the economics of baseball are all but guaranteed to change once the new Collective Bargaining Agreement is ratified. Whether that involves a salary cap and floor, minimum and maximum contracts, or a completely overhauled revenue-sharing model is sort of irrelevant to the point; owners will need to head into December feeling confident that their front office can adjust to whatever changes they implement in negotiations.

If the Mets were to fire Stearns right now, that would give them about five months prior to the Dec. 1 date that marks the expiration of the current CBA. Even that would be a time crunch seeing as all of the best targets to replace him won't leave their respective teams until after the regular sends ends in September. Wait until that point and you're looking at a two-month window to introduce a decision-making chief to the equation, one who has to make a host of consequential roster decisions before the lockout even takes effect.

It's true that Stearns' offseason retooling has not paid dividends. His "run prevention" approach to roster building looks like a joke following the Cubs series. A lot of the moves he's made since that magical 2024 season have backfired.

However, he knows this organization like the back of his hand at this point. That kind of institutional knowledge is more valuable than ever at this exact moment in time. It's more likely than not that Steve Cohen will trust Stearns to continue guiding this team on either side of the lockout, if for no other reason than because he's already here.

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