NY Mets Monday Morning GM: Shallow NL gave David Stearns his deadline blueprint

Above all else, David Stearns seemed to have one goal in mind at this year’s trade deadline. Thanks to a shallow National League that seems to include 7 teams vying for 6 playoff spots, Stearns behaved in a manner which suggests he believes the New York Mets are postseason bound already.

It’s an easy conclusion to come away with. The Mets have been postseason-positioned throughout the year with little doubt they’d sink out of the NL East race. Wild Card standings watching hasn’t been much of a thought as the Mets and Philadelphia Phillies play musical chairs.

Confident in the team he built, Stearns skipped over making August and September the priority. His plan blueprint at the trade deadline followed the same direction as many teams: build your bullpen.

The Mets are equipped for the playoffs even if they’re lacking for a 162 game season

A couple of things happen in the playoffs. More than four starting pitchers are ever needed. In fact, as the Los Angeles Dodgers showed last year on their way to a championship, you can put a couple of bullpen games together and win it all. The Mets have three starters they can rely on at some level. Between David Peterson, Kodai Senga, and Sean Manaea, things are pretty good.

Fans wanted them to trade for a starting pitcher, but apparently the sellers were all asking for too much. Even pending free agents on sellers, Zac Gallen being the most well-known, failed to find a new home. Draft pick compensation seemed to mean more for the Arizona Diamondbacks than anything they were getting offered for two months of him.

The Mets have shown a few times this year how they could always handle a fourth game in a short series. Beyond the Peterson-Senga-Manaea trio, an opener followed by some piggybacking from Clay Holmes is a possibility. As fans, it’s too early to start getting too into the weeds on how to accomplish this. As the shot caller for the Mets, it appears to be exactly what Stearns had in mind by choosing three big starting pitcher additions rather than passing on one and adding a starter.

The Mets always had the option of pulling the plug on Holmes as a starter and adding someone new. Not out of the realm of possibility with internal choices still available, we can confidently believe Holmes is trending toward being a bulk relief guy rather than a postseason starter.

Innings, in any role possible, always seemed to be the messaging Stearns favored. He had more starting pitchers under contract than he could possibly fit onto one roster. Preseason injuries made it so there never was a competition between 7 starters for 5 spots. Alas, we experienced a career-year out of Griffin Canning for a few months. The injured guys returned with varying results.

The league is no longer about dominating with starting pitching. Winners are the ones who have the quantity of arms most matching quality. Yet to turn to prospects such as Nolan McLean or Brandon Sproat just yet, the Mets have an abundance of choices to help get them through any playoff series.

All of this was brought to us by a National League that, while better at the top than the American League, has more than half of the ball clubs waving the white flag.