3 lessons David Stearns can learn from Chaim Bloom's Red Sox failure and not repeat

Imagine if the New York Mets hired Chaim Bloom. There's no guarantee it would have ended as quickly as it did in Boston. However, it's clear he didn't have a magic potion. His baseball brilliance was fallible after all. 

In case you didn’t have cell phone coverage at your orthopedist’s office featuring a sub-2 minute meeting with the actual doctor like myself, Bloom was fired by the Boston Red Sox on Thursday. The timing works out well for the Mets who were able to nab their guy, David Stearns, before yet another contender for him emerged. The pain if the Mets had waited and the Red Sox pulled Stearns in instead would have been worse than the pain my orthopedist insists requires an MRI to diagnose. Apparently, doctors don’t have magic potions either.

The Bloom tenure in Boston turned out to be a major disappointment for Red Sox fans. To avoid the same feelings in Flushing, Stearns should avoid the same sand traps. Let’s look at them and some equivalent moves he might make to match.

NY Mets can't let trade their Mookie Betts or let their Xander Bogaerts leave in free agency

One of Stearns' first orders of business is to plan out where Pete Alonso fits in. Personally, I grab a permanent marker and write his name into the cleanup spot. He shouldn't go anywhere.

Giving him the Mookie Betts treatment or allowing him to walk as Xander Bogaerts did is the wrong move to make. Alonso isn't quite Betts in terms of talent but he's their closest thing to it nearing an expiring contract.

Stearns wouldn't be doing his job if all he did was listen to the fans. He should field calls on a possible Alonso trade. He'd be insane not to.

When push comes to shove, it's hard to see the Mets getting a sizable enough hail in return for Alonso. Worse is letting him leave for nothing at all.

If Alonso ends up in another team’s uniform, it feels like money is the reason why. He can’t be that unreasonable behind the scenes, can he? Don’t do what Bloom did and let too many fan favorites leave.

NY Mets need to pick a direction and stick with it

The Red Sox had two lousy trade deadlines in a row. If you want to point at one week that earned Bloom a pink slip, you'd have to choose between 2022 and 2023. Neither time did they fully commit in a single direction. The Red Sox held onto too many players in 2022 who'd go on to leave in free agency. A similar thing will happen in the coming winter with Boston being even more non-committal at this year's trade deadline. Pick a side. Save the neutrality for the Swedish.

Say what you will about Billy Eppler, he drove the Mets tank with his face plastered all over it. While he could have certainly moved even more players, anyone worth their weight on prospects who won't be back next year are long gone.

The Red Sox suffered from this same fate in the offseason. In need of much bigger boosts to the roster, they settled on short term deals with players like Justin Turner, Kenley Jansen, and Adam Duvall. All three could have made good trade deadline chips. Each remains with the Red Sox.

Exactly what direction is Stearns going to lead the Mets in? We’re expecting some sort of commitment to winning, maybe to a lesser degree than this year when there was seemingly no limit to the payroll.

Stearns has, like all of us, surely already fallen asleep at night pondering about what types of moves he’d make if he had control of the Mets. We just have to hope he’s not flaky. Behave a bit like Harry, Zayn, Louis, Liam, and Niall and have one direction, not some roundabout route Bloom seemed to take.