This summed it up perfectly. At least the Norwegians had fun at the afternoon game. There seems to be zero accountability in this entire organization. I get that there have been injuries, but EVERY TEAM deals with injuries and don't turn into black holes of awfulness. Stearns doesn't seem capable of accepting responsibility and the silence from Uncle Steve makes me feel like now that he's got his casino, he doesn't really care.
Disagree. It would do no good for Cohen to publicly rant about how things have gone. No basis for thinking the absence of ranting means he doesn't care. Regarding Stearns, do you really think he or anybody else in his position is going to stand in front of a microphone and say, "I made a lot of bad decisions this past off-season and that is why, combined with some bad luck, we have a very expensive but crappy team"?
Where did I say that Cohen had to rant? Just a post to fans about "I feel your pain and the results are not what we were expecting this year" would help. As for Stearns, he seems to just double down on his thinking of how you should put together a team. We'll see what he does in the off season. Does he continue to double down? Does he hire a GM? And as for the fans being patient, sorry, but we are well beyond that point. People can be patient when there are given a reason to be. I don't see anything resembling that coming out of the organization.
Cohen has made at least one and I think more than one public statement that pretty much duplicates your suggestion. Next, I don't think Stearns will survive into the next offseason. Next, the patience I was referring to was waiting until Stearns and Mendoza are fired, not patience waiting for the team to improve.
I did a quick down and dirty run down of the money that David Stearns has spent on behalf of Steve and Alex Cohen the last 3 years. Obviously 2026 still has some incompletes but at the midway point it is fair to say where it is trending. I did not count every dollar, just the trades preseason, free agents, decisions like club options, and mid season trades. Nothing on tendering guys who are under team control, nor arbitration either settled or case decisions, just the things that a head of a front office has more specific control of.
In 2024 Stearns acquired 19 players for a total of $89.84 Million, of that $61 MM produced a positive return via bWar, across 9 players. 3 players were neutral for $13.2 MM (neutral are 0 WAR players or incomplete seasons due to injury ie Brooks Raley or Drew Smith, whereas Adam Ottavino was a 0 WAR). 6 players combined to be a negative return on $15.6 MM.
in 2025 Stearns again acquired 19 players for a total of $189.2 MM, if course nearly $92 MM was Juan Soto and Pete Alonso. 6 players provided a positive return on $112.3 MM, the aforementioned 2 accounted for 82% of the spend, the other big upside was Clay Holmes. 3 players were neutral for $14.4 MM. The negative return skyrocketed in 2025, 10 players accounted for $62.5 MM of negative return.
It gets worse, in 2026 as you can imagine. 4 players have contributed to a positive return on $77.4 MM, again one of those is Juan Soto.
Neutral gets a bit trickier at a midway point, 4 players are neutral due to injury and or wretched performance - AJ Minter, Clay Holmes are the former, Bo Bichette and Freddy Peralta are the latter, for a total of $74 MM. 9 players have accumulated a negative WAR, multiple 60 day IL stints or flat-out release, costing a total of $116.5 MM.
A lot can always change with 82 games remaining, but that a lot could also include Bo Bichette crumbling in negative WAR territory, or he could have a .900 OPS the remainder of the year and obviously he moves from neutral to positive.
In 2024 17% of the spend that Stearns was directly responsible for was wasteful. In 2025 that number leapt to 33%, in 2026 that figure is nearly 45% and trending towards a distinct possibility that it could go well over 50%.
If there's indeed heart and pulse, it hasn't been seen much. If there's indeed talent on this team, it's resulted in 12 under .500.
The team - and organization - appears to be a shambles. It may be that we really don't have enough players to properly field a team, with such obvious and frequent out-of-position players.
I am a very patient fan - since the beginning, I should add. That patience has yielded two WS championships in 64 years!! 2!!
Can't sugarcoat this any longer; I want to see some accountability, some positive action to correct this deeply flawed roster, and sone some signs of life from upstairs - and my completely subjective summation of this fiasco is that this team stinks!
Disagree about the no heart and no pulse. It's a performance problem, not an emotional one. Every crappy team looks like it has no heart and no pulse. Disagree about whether there's talent on this team: Soto, Lindor, Alvarez, Benge, Ewing, Bichette, McLean, Holmes, Peralta, Weaver, Williams, Raley, Minter, Brazoban are talented ballplayers. I think we as fans just have to be patient. Stearns and Mendoza are on the way out, we just don't know when.
Hi Joel. Disagree with your comment on the no heart and no pulse. It is a performance problem, but I think a lack of heart and a lack of pulse absolutely plays into that. I think two things can be right at the same time and on certain days, like yesterday, the performance falls off a cliff because they just quit and play with no heart and are non-competitive. That's just my opinion, but I know we've disagreed on this before. I just think that it is absolutely a problem, and has been for a while now. As for talent, I agree there is talent, but my point was intended to say that talent is no good when it is being played out of position, or being asked to do too much because of other pieces that don't fit. Mendoza going and a new voice coming in may help in the short term, but this is still a flawed roster and one that needs a lot of work, especially on the pitching side. Plus, to your point, I doubt the likes of Peralta, Raley, Brazoban etc will be here past the Trade Deadline. As always, love debating with you and thank you for taking the time to read and comment
SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING! Uncle Stevie that's YOU! Reminds me of the Knicks before Leon Rose. No direction or smart moves. Just bad all the way around. Finally Dolan hired the right guy to build a team. Uncle Stevie, fire the 2 headed monster of Sterns and Mendoza. Then hire the right guy to build the team and hire an experienced manager to actually manage the ballplayers. There are guys out there that recognize talent and know what it takes to play in NY. DO SOMETHING!
One question that should be asked: Why is MLB allowing Cohen to build a casino while owning an MLB team? It seems like a conflict of interest. At the very least it's a bad look. Cohen will profit off gambling and the sports book that will no doubt be run out of the casino. It's just wrong.
I'm resigned to the starting pitching woes. The night game, however, was totally embarrassing. Six errors? The guy Just Mets had a special entry to give him an "atta boy," also struggled. The defense didn't help. But after that first game, three plus innings? Not good.
The manager has some agency here. He is not a potted plant. He isn't useless. Why is he still here? One person said David Stearns has a reason to keep him. Why is Stearns still here? I don't expect an answer. But I'm sick of both of them.
I wish David Peterson, who helped the team over the years, well. I wish Senga well. On another team. Let him go. He might do well if given a fresh start.
There is talent on this team. It also needs a change. One Mets podcast has long said he is done caring about them for this season. Apathy is not a good look. If they mostly stand pat, however, is the appropriate. reaction.
I guess then it's Baty at second except that you can argue he's had his shot and blew it (sorry) such that we're better off putting Mauricio there and give him a good run of games to see if he can figure out how to hit. Very athletic guy, Mauricio is.
In defense of Vientos.....WHO could have foreseen the unfolding tragedy of placing a guy at 1st that's never played it before. Is the destruction tion of this team being done deliberately?? Are the Russians behind it by installing a puppet named Stearns??. im just asking questions.
If it's possible to defend Stearns on this issue: maybe he couldn't get anything for Vientos over the winter and took a shot that he could recover his stroke. He's a DH if there ever was one but somehow early on they gave DH at bats to Polanco and tried Baty at first...then when Soto was coming back from his injury they gave Soto DH at bats...they've also given Wagaman and Melendez and Young DH at bats. To repeat myself, what hurts the most about the Mets is that the young guys we believe in, i.e., Vientos and Baty, have flopped bigtime. They both are valueless in trades in this point.
This summed it up perfectly. At least the Norwegians had fun at the afternoon game. There seems to be zero accountability in this entire organization. I get that there have been injuries, but EVERY TEAM deals with injuries and don't turn into black holes of awfulness. Stearns doesn't seem capable of accepting responsibility and the silence from Uncle Steve makes me feel like now that he's got his casino, he doesn't really care.
Disagree. It would do no good for Cohen to publicly rant about how things have gone. No basis for thinking the absence of ranting means he doesn't care. Regarding Stearns, do you really think he or anybody else in his position is going to stand in front of a microphone and say, "I made a lot of bad decisions this past off-season and that is why, combined with some bad luck, we have a very expensive but crappy team"?
Where did I say that Cohen had to rant? Just a post to fans about "I feel your pain and the results are not what we were expecting this year" would help. As for Stearns, he seems to just double down on his thinking of how you should put together a team. We'll see what he does in the off season. Does he continue to double down? Does he hire a GM? And as for the fans being patient, sorry, but we are well beyond that point. People can be patient when there are given a reason to be. I don't see anything resembling that coming out of the organization.
Cohen has made at least one and I think more than one public statement that pretty much duplicates your suggestion. Next, I don't think Stearns will survive into the next offseason. Next, the patience I was referring to was waiting until Stearns and Mendoza are fired, not patience waiting for the team to improve.
Stearns in the off season???? He better be down in A Albany ball by then.
I did a quick down and dirty run down of the money that David Stearns has spent on behalf of Steve and Alex Cohen the last 3 years. Obviously 2026 still has some incompletes but at the midway point it is fair to say where it is trending. I did not count every dollar, just the trades preseason, free agents, decisions like club options, and mid season trades. Nothing on tendering guys who are under team control, nor arbitration either settled or case decisions, just the things that a head of a front office has more specific control of.
In 2024 Stearns acquired 19 players for a total of $89.84 Million, of that $61 MM produced a positive return via bWar, across 9 players. 3 players were neutral for $13.2 MM (neutral are 0 WAR players or incomplete seasons due to injury ie Brooks Raley or Drew Smith, whereas Adam Ottavino was a 0 WAR). 6 players combined to be a negative return on $15.6 MM.
in 2025 Stearns again acquired 19 players for a total of $189.2 MM, if course nearly $92 MM was Juan Soto and Pete Alonso. 6 players provided a positive return on $112.3 MM, the aforementioned 2 accounted for 82% of the spend, the other big upside was Clay Holmes. 3 players were neutral for $14.4 MM. The negative return skyrocketed in 2025, 10 players accounted for $62.5 MM of negative return.
It gets worse, in 2026 as you can imagine. 4 players have contributed to a positive return on $77.4 MM, again one of those is Juan Soto.
Neutral gets a bit trickier at a midway point, 4 players are neutral due to injury and or wretched performance - AJ Minter, Clay Holmes are the former, Bo Bichette and Freddy Peralta are the latter, for a total of $74 MM. 9 players have accumulated a negative WAR, multiple 60 day IL stints or flat-out release, costing a total of $116.5 MM.
A lot can always change with 82 games remaining, but that a lot could also include Bo Bichette crumbling in negative WAR territory, or he could have a .900 OPS the remainder of the year and obviously he moves from neutral to positive.
In 2024 17% of the spend that Stearns was directly responsible for was wasteful. In 2025 that number leapt to 33%, in 2026 that figure is nearly 45% and trending towards a distinct possibility that it could go well over 50%.
Good post!
12 under .500 says it all.
If there's indeed heart and pulse, it hasn't been seen much. If there's indeed talent on this team, it's resulted in 12 under .500.
The team - and organization - appears to be a shambles. It may be that we really don't have enough players to properly field a team, with such obvious and frequent out-of-position players.
I am a very patient fan - since the beginning, I should add. That patience has yielded two WS championships in 64 years!! 2!!
Can't sugarcoat this any longer; I want to see some accountability, some positive action to correct this deeply flawed roster, and sone some signs of life from upstairs - and my completely subjective summation of this fiasco is that this team stinks!
Disagree about the no heart and no pulse. It's a performance problem, not an emotional one. Every crappy team looks like it has no heart and no pulse. Disagree about whether there's talent on this team: Soto, Lindor, Alvarez, Benge, Ewing, Bichette, McLean, Holmes, Peralta, Weaver, Williams, Raley, Minter, Brazoban are talented ballplayers. I think we as fans just have to be patient. Stearns and Mendoza are on the way out, we just don't know when.
Hi Joel. Disagree with your comment on the no heart and no pulse. It is a performance problem, but I think a lack of heart and a lack of pulse absolutely plays into that. I think two things can be right at the same time and on certain days, like yesterday, the performance falls off a cliff because they just quit and play with no heart and are non-competitive. That's just my opinion, but I know we've disagreed on this before. I just think that it is absolutely a problem, and has been for a while now. As for talent, I agree there is talent, but my point was intended to say that talent is no good when it is being played out of position, or being asked to do too much because of other pieces that don't fit. Mendoza going and a new voice coming in may help in the short term, but this is still a flawed roster and one that needs a lot of work, especially on the pitching side. Plus, to your point, I doubt the likes of Peralta, Raley, Brazoban etc will be here past the Trade Deadline. As always, love debating with you and thank you for taking the time to read and comment
SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING! Uncle Stevie that's YOU! Reminds me of the Knicks before Leon Rose. No direction or smart moves. Just bad all the way around. Finally Dolan hired the right guy to build a team. Uncle Stevie, fire the 2 headed monster of Sterns and Mendoza. Then hire the right guy to build the team and hire an experienced manager to actually manage the ballplayers. There are guys out there that recognize talent and know what it takes to play in NY. DO SOMETHING!
It's time for David to pursue another profession. This ain't it for him.
One question that should be asked: Why is MLB allowing Cohen to build a casino while owning an MLB team? It seems like a conflict of interest. At the very least it's a bad look. Cohen will profit off gambling and the sports book that will no doubt be run out of the casino. It's just wrong.
But betting is integrated in pro sports these days. Dramatically different than how it was.
I'm resigned to the starting pitching woes. The night game, however, was totally embarrassing. Six errors? The guy Just Mets had a special entry to give him an "atta boy," also struggled. The defense didn't help. But after that first game, three plus innings? Not good.
The manager has some agency here. He is not a potted plant. He isn't useless. Why is he still here? One person said David Stearns has a reason to keep him. Why is Stearns still here? I don't expect an answer. But I'm sick of both of them.
I wish David Peterson, who helped the team over the years, well. I wish Senga well. On another team. Let him go. He might do well if given a fresh start.
There is talent on this team. It also needs a change. One Mets podcast has long said he is done caring about them for this season. Apathy is not a good look. If they mostly stand pat, however, is the appropriate. reaction.
meanwhile ...
The Mets have placed second baseman Marcus Semien on the 10-day IL with a hip flexor strain.
I guess then it's Baty at second except that you can argue he's had his shot and blew it (sorry) such that we're better off putting Mauricio there and give him a good run of games to see if he can figure out how to hit. Very athletic guy, Mauricio is.
In defense of Vientos.....WHO could have foreseen the unfolding tragedy of placing a guy at 1st that's never played it before. Is the destruction tion of this team being done deliberately?? Are the Russians behind it by installing a puppet named Stearns??. im just asking questions.
If it's possible to defend Stearns on this issue: maybe he couldn't get anything for Vientos over the winter and took a shot that he could recover his stroke. He's a DH if there ever was one but somehow early on they gave DH at bats to Polanco and tried Baty at first...then when Soto was coming back from his injury they gave Soto DH at bats...they've also given Wagaman and Melendez and Young DH at bats. To repeat myself, what hurts the most about the Mets is that the young guys we believe in, i.e., Vientos and Baty, have flopped bigtime. They both are valueless in trades in this point.