Mets Monday Morning GM: 3 lessons the team can learn from last offseason’s misfires

Where did New York Mets President of Baseball Operations David Stearns shine brightest? It definitely wasn’t in the 2023-2024 offseason. Other than the success provided by Sean Manaea and Luis Severino, he seemed to be at his best with in-season moves. Promotions that worked out incredibly well during the regular season and some wise trades are what helped turn the Mets around.

There are always lessons to be learned from failures in the past. The Mets certainly had their misfires. Avoiding some of these mistakes can get them off to a better start in 2025.

1) The Mets don’t need to create a situation where they have too much roster redundancy

The Mets really wanted a strong defensive team in 2024. The odd thing about it is through the first few weeks of the season they weren’t that great with the glove. It held them back offensively. Zack Short and Joey Wendle? They were never necessary together.

It wasn’t just those two versatile infielders who gave the impression the Mets put too many eggs into one basket. Harrison Bader and Tyrone Taylor essentially swapped roles by the time the season was over with. There was never much of a need to have both together. While an acceptable attempt to give themselves two good defensive players on the roster, it handicapped them at times because this was a team that employed J.D. Martinez. For a good length of time, Martinez was joined on the roster by DJ Stewart who is essentially a DH himself. Jesse Winker is nothing special with a glove either and the Mets wisely moved Stewart to the minors in favor of him.

The way this roster was built seemed more focused on types of players rather than checking off all of the necessary boxes. The only speed they had on the bench came from Taylor. Then there was the bullpen where things were questionable from the start.

2) The Mets should go with younger and optional players from the start

Stearns was active at building the team’s bullpen, but he could have easily abstained from a couple of the offseason moves. Michael Tonkin was signed on the cheap. Yohan Ramirez was a player for cash addition. They went bargain hunting for bullpen arms over the winter. Jorge Lopez was good until he chucked his glove into the stands. Many of the others brought in stunk or ran out of gas quickly.

An early issue the Mets ran into was a lack of optional relievers. Holdovers from last year were locked onto the major league roster. Drew Smith, Sean Reid-Foley, etc. could only be removed if they were hurt. And hurt they were.

The Mets didn’t seem to have much of a strategy with building the bullpen other than waiting for the price to fall in the latter stages of the winter. Adam Ottavino, Jake Diekman, and Shintaro Fujinami all signed around the same time. Bad, worse, and atrocious are ways to describe them.

They showed little faith in their younger and optional arms. Jose Butto grew into becoming their best reliever this year. Dedniel Nunez appeared from a smoke cloud to do the same thing. Let’s even give credit to Reed Garrett for tossing 57.1 innings for the Mets, more than any other reliever.

Stearns missed a lot when it came to building the relief corps for the 2024 Mets. Only Ottavino and Edwin Diaz survived the season from Opening Day. Some automatic flexibility already built in for 2025 thanks to pitchers like Nunez who still have options, leaving room for younger arms to thrive can save them the hassle of watching a veteran journeyman blow too many early games.