In his first season as Mets president of baseball operations, David Stearns seemed to push all of the right buttons, leading a team that started 0-5 and looked to be trade deadline sellers on an unforgettable run to Game 6 of the NLCS.
The Mets’ unforgettable 2024 season ended just three days ago, but Stearns and his front office have already turned the page to the offseason, which is sure to be a fascinating one.
Stearns met with members of the media on Wednesday for an end-of-season wrap-up, talking about hot topics such as Pete Alonso’s impending free agency, the club’s payroll for next season, and much more.
Here’s what Stearns had to say…
Will the Mets hire a general manager this season?
“I have not made a firm decision. I’m not eager to do it. I think we’ve got a good group in place here. I’m pleased with the performance that our front office has had in general. I think we have a nice leadership team going. If someone were to become available that I think would be really tough to pass up, then I’d certainly consider it, but we’re not going to go through and entertain a huge search here, because I think we’ve got a pretty good group going.”
Evaluating Carlos Mendoza
“Mendy did a tremendous job. We talked about this throughout the season, just the consistency that he presented himself [with], his ability to be the same person every day, regardless of what was going on. That was true when he and I were by ourselves in his office talking through things and it was true when he was out here in front of you and the cameras. It was the same person and it was a lot of fun.”
Will the entire coaching staff return for the 2025 season?
“At the end of every season, by practice, we’re going to go through a little bit of an organizational evaluation period. We’re going through that right now, so I’m not at the point where I can make any declarative statements. But I’ll say that I was pleased, by and large, by our major league staff, and I think we have a lot of good coaches.”
On the state of the farm system compared to this time last year
“I think we continue to progress in the right direction. I think we’re a little bit deeper than we were probably one year ago today. Part of that is through continued development of internal players, and part of that is because we added a whole ‘nother draft class, which is always helpful. We had a lot of injuries in our system this year on the position player front, and so I’m not sure we saw the amount of position player development at the top of the system that maybe we anticipated at the front of the season. But these guys are still good players. Some of them are playing in the fall league right now to get more at-bats under their belt, and I would imagine a number of those position players who are towards the top of our organizational prospect rankings have a chance to really impact the major league team next year.”
Takeaways from the 2024 season
“I think we took a positive step for the organization. We believed all along that we had the ability to compete for a playoff spot and have an exciting September, October, and we did. So, I think that is certainly a positive. I think behind the scenes, under the hood, we put some things in place that will serve us well going forward. Still some work to do in those areas as well, and now it’s our responsibility to keep it going. We enjoyed this run, our fan base enjoyed this run, we have great memories from this run. It’s also time for us to move forward and see what we can do to build on this to ensure we have the type of sustainable competitiveness, true sustainable competitiveness, that’s eluded this organization for a long time.”
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