Mets Monday Morning GM: 3 positive assumptions about David Stearns we can make

2) David Stearns won’t be stubborn enough to stick with the original plan

All offseason it was pitched to the fans that this year was about learning what Brett Baty and Mark Vientos would do. The DH plan was for Vientos, DJ Stewart, and Starling Marte to share duties. How quickly that changed when J.D. Martinez was willing to lower his demands.

This doesn’t feel as much like Stearns admitting his mistake as much as it was the POBO seizing an opportunity. Stearns may have been completely okay with the team going into the year with the originally proposed DH plan. When the ability to snag Martinez for only $12 million total with a large portion deferred popped up, it was too irresistible.

The Mets didn’t fully waver from the offseason plan only because they needed something from the onset of the winter. Short term additions was the primary goal, but let’s not forget they did pursue Yoshinobu Yamamoto and surely would have done so if a similarly available free agent was out there. The problem with the Mets was their greatest need was the starting rotation and after Yamamoto it was players in the Luis Severino and Sean Manaea category or ones looking overpriced like Blake Snell.

No one likes a stubborn baseball executive. This isn’t a trait of Stearns he has shown thus far.