In my recent 2024 grades column, Mets PoBO David Stearns received a B+ from me, which I thought was an aggressive grade. The piece closed with this bit – “In a way, the grades for Mendoza and Stearns were handled with kid-gloves. With a full – successful! – season under their belts, they’ll both be subject to tougher marks in 2025”
But others didn’t think that was aggressive at all, including SNY’s John Harper, who gave Stearns an A, saying this:
Big picture-wise, however, he put together a team without spending at the top of the free agent market that went farther than anybody expected.
But how much of the team’s 89 wins can be attributed to Stearns’ acquisitions? This is a question that WAR can answer fairly well. If you recall from a piece here from last offseason, fWAR explained at least 97% of the win totals for the Mets in both 2022 and 2023 – two seasons with vastly different outcomes. So, let’s use fWAR to gauge the impact of Stearns’ moves on the Mets’ win total:
| Player | fWAR | Salary |
|---|---|---|
| Sean Manaea | 2.8 | 14.5 |
| Jose Iglesias | 2.5 | 0.984 |
| Luis Severino | 2.1 | $13 |
| Harrison Bader | 1.3 | 10.5 |
| Tyrone Taylor | 1.2 | 2.025 |
| Luis Torrens | 0.8 | 0.787 |
| Phil Maton | 0.7 | 2.789 |
| J.D. Martinez | 0.6 | 12 |
| Adam Ottavino | 0.5 | 4.5 |
| Danny Young | 0.2 | 0.466 |
| Paul Blackburn | 0.1 | 1.15 |
| Yohan Ramirez | 0.1 | 0.769 |
| Eddy Alvarez | 0 | 0.084 |
| Huascar Brazoban | 0 | 0.245 |
| Matt Festa | 0 | 0.025 |
| Joe Hudson | 0 | 0.034 |
| Pablo Reyes | 0 | 0.203 |
| Cole Sulser | 0 | 0.16 |
| Jesse Winker | 0 | 0.688 |
| Alex Young | 0 | 0.353 |
| Ben Gamel | -0.1 | 0.318 |
| Adrian Houser | -0.1 | 5.05 |
| Jorge Lopez | -0.1 | 2 |
| Zack Short | -0.1 | 0.747 |
| Ryne Stanek | -0.1 | 1.419 |
| Julio Teheran | -0.1 | 0.121 |
| Michael Tonkin | -0.2 | 1 |
| Joey Wendle | -0.2 | 2 |
| Ty Adcock | -0.4 | 0.079 |
| Jake Diekman | -0.8 | 4 |
| 10.7 | 81.996 |
The salary number is listed in millions, so Stearns spent just shy of $82 million on the 30 players listed above and received 10.7 units of fWAR in return. These were the 30 players signed by Stearns that appeared in the majors and does not include players like Shintaro Fujinami, Matt Gage and Max Kranick – who did not play a game in the majors.
Stearns hit a home run with Iglesias and also got very good value with the Manaea, Taylor and Severino additions. But just like we can’t recall the half-dozen times that Wilmer Flores came up with a big hit and conclude that he was a clutch hitter while ignoring everything else, we have to consider the totality of Stearns’ moves to accurately rate his season.
Certainly, paying nearly $27 million for (-1) fWAR from Martinez, Houser, Lopez, Short, Teheran, Tonkin, Wendle and Diekman has to be considered. As well as the $1.8 million spent on the eight players listed above who combined for 0 fWAR.
Paying $30.5 million for 8.6 fWAR for Iglesias, Manaea, Severino and Taylor is outstanding. Paying nearly $29 million for (-1) fWAR for those others mentioned above is not so hot.
It’s hard to make a judgment on how good spending nearly $82 million for 10.7 fWAR is unless we do this same exercise for every other GM in baseball. If we use the rule of thumb that a unit of fWAR on the free agent market is about $8 million then Stearns came out ahead, as he received $85.6 million of value. But that would take a hit if we included Fujinami and the others.
Still, it seems safe to say that Stearns did a little better than average with the $/WAR calculation with his additions. But did he do A-level work? And how much credit should he receive for the 10.7 of fWAR he added to the team by spending nearly $82 million? Francisco Lindor, Jeff McNeil and Brandon Nimmo were paid $64.85 million and returned 11.8 fWAR. And that’s with two of those three turning in seasons worse than expected.
Perhaps it’s not fair to cherry pick three high-paid players who all had positive fWAR totals for this comparison. Or maybe it’s an indication that it’s okay to spend money in the upper tiers of the free agent market, so long as you take age and expected production into account.
Of course, while the moves a PoBO makes bringing in talent for the MLB club is the most visible part of his job – it’s not the only part. Perhaps Stearns’ moves in these other departments is what brings his grade up to an A level. While that’s a possibility – certainly he gets credit for hiring Carlos Mendoza – it doesn’t seem very likely to me.
Even if you feel differently – that Stearns’ work in other areas of the job merited the top grade – that doesn’t jibe with the reason Harper gave for giving Stearns an “A.” My hope is that Stearns gets more bang for his buck in free agency for the 2025 season. And his mid-year acquisitions, too.
Interesting piece noting the totality of Stearns’ work, but he had to fill some spaces that as the organization is built up, will be built from within. The relievers should be from the depth of the organization instead of having to build an entire bullpen with Jorge Lopez, Diekman, Ramirez, Tomkin, etc.
Ideally, you can build a bullpen from internal options. In reality, it rarely works out that way.
Baseball trades/acquisitions can be a big surprise as you can’t guarantee that a player is going to simply repeat their prior season or the back of their baseball card as we often comment about. Part of the grade that you gave Stearns, I believe, came from his resistance to drain the farm system and pick up players who certainly would’ve made a much bigger impact at the trade deadline. You have to believe in his mind he also believed that the team was competitive, but not really going to make it to within a game of going to the World Series. It is reasonable that if he had any inkling that the Mets were going to be as good as they were the rest of the season after the trade deadline, then he would’ve tried to pick up another strong, starting pitcher, other than Blackburn, and a major impact bat.
It probably would be an interesting comparison if there was an easy way to do what you did for all teams to see how their acquisitions panned out. It would be a huge undertaking, and I am not suggesting that you do it.
The list also reflects that we had a whole load of crap on the team this year just trying to pick up bargain basement players, and hoping they would contribute. With all of the money coming off the payroll between our own free agents and those we don’t have to pay anymore to play for other teams, it seems that we will be able to pick up a better caliber of player. Also, it is reasonable that some of the kids down on the farm will be progressing forward in 2025.
Thanks for the article. It was interesting.
In my mind, Stearns – and at least to some degree, Cohen – approached this season as a bridge to future years. And there was nothing wrong with that approach.
To me, where Stearns fell short of an “A” grade was with how he handled the Baty/Vientos/Martinez situation, how he mishandled Butto – especially with the Julio Teheran debacle – and the Harrison Bader move. Yeah, the Bader one wasn’t horrible. But it wasn’t good, either. And considering that two of the four moves where he spent $10 million plus didn’t really work, that just doesn’t scream “A” to me.
This all must be a true labor of love of yours Brian, to really provide such depth and statistics to your writings on the Mets. I truly understand your frustration in having to deal with us when we spout off our opinions as “facts”. Most of us might have a ‘gut feeling’ about a player or a topic, but factual evidence takes the prize. Thank you for your hard work.
Thanks for the kind words!
FWIW – I generally only get frustrated when evidence has been presented which gets ignored. We all have feelings or theories on matters, which is fine. I’ve had theories, done the research and found my theory wrong. The one that jumps out to me is that I thought if a SP faced the same team a second time in a short period that whatever they did the first time, they’d do the opposite the next time. Like, if they pitched a gem the first time, they’d get beat up the second time. That was one that the evidence just wasn’t there to support it. Yeah, it happened some. But not enough to justify believing completely in the theory.
For whatever reason, a large portion of humans, perhaps the majority, have a difficult time allowing empirical evidence and/or facts sway their point of view.
Well stated, FootballHead, and I concur. Brian, your use of data and evidence to support your arguments is so consistent. I also appreciate that you also voice your opinion but you clearly flag it. This objectivity is what grabbed me as a follower years ago and why I keep coming back.
Like minds are also attracted to this community and the contributions on any given article are fantastic. This one is a case in point – such intelligent and provocative commentary.
I always learn something from my daily M360 perusal.
This article was very interesting and unique way to assess David Stearns contributions. Let’s look at the last off-season and the trade deadline and look at the players that Stearns obtained to make the Mets competitive.
Stearns obtained Severino, Manaea and Houser for his starting rotation. Severino and Manaea were his expensive free agents and they worked out very well. Houser a trade acquisition, didn’t.
Martinez was expected to do more than his 106 OPS+.
Bader was expected to be his starting centerfielder but he couldn’t hit and lost his job to Taylor. Taylor was supposed to be the fourth outfielder with his productive in that role (99 OPS+) was good but the production is too small as a starter.
Although Iglesias signed by Stearns , he shouldn’t get too much credit for it. Stearns wanted Wendle and Short. Stearns didn’t expect anything from Iglesias.
Stearns did want Torrens as a backup catcher and Torrens filled that role capably and better than Narvaez or Nido.
Lopez, Tonkin and Diekman were expected to be the bullpen but they failed.
Stanek and Brazoban, their replacements , didn’t contribute.
Danny and Alex Young, Maton, Ottavino were average.
Stearns trade deadline acquisitions Winker and Blackburn didn’t perform as expected.
All in all , Stearns hit a home run with Severino and Manaea, which was very important but I don’t think Stearns other additions didn’t make this a 89 win team. I think the credit goes to Lindor, Vientos, Inglesias , Peterson ,Butto and Nunez for their incredible season and production.
I think part of this left unsaid is that as a team sport there is a real important X factor that is not part of the baseball card numbers. This is not stratomatic. So for example, we could clearly see Mets teams with rotten clubhouse chemistry, hell, even this season early on. What Stearns did assemble and continue to refine through the season was a team all pulling the rope in the same direction. One of the best things about this season was exactly the team chemistry that made us fans bond that much more. Take a guy like Winker, who did not give us his Nationals numbers, yet provided a lot of glue, energy, and some key hits like that triple. Its easy to brand Winkers stay as a loser, yet I would contend his value was more than the sum of his parts. Another player like that is Kike Hernandez, who is undistinguished much of the time (reg season OPS+ = 85), yet plays on tilt in the post season.
The reverse situation needs to be examined too. What if Stearns did not make the moves he made, how would the team have done? Well, look at last year. I think it is essential to see the entity as a whole. This was a much better team, much better chemistry, much better overall on many fronts. Building a team is clearly hit-miss person by person, but looking at the whole it is quite hard to deny Stearns did pull enough of the right moves to make it 6 games wins from being Champions.
Chris, we have heard that veterans run the clubhouse. It’s why certain young Mets players’ arrogance did not allow them blend in; veterans don’t like players that don’t want to row the boat in the same direction. Too, all year long we have heard from the Mets players of Nimmo’s and Lindor’s leadership. It was pointed out when they go in roadtrips, it’s those guys that pick up the first meal of a new city for the team. Martinez noted their leadership on several occasions. It was very telling to never hear Alonso’s name, and he played that way all year. It was in the playoffs when he started going to RF successfully that he seemed happier and more engaging with his teammates, but series winning homeruns will make you pretty popular.
When a team talks about chemistry, it is usually brought about by secondary players accepting their roles. Not just Winker, but a player like Torrens that many of us felt should get a chance while Alvarez was throwing the ball all over the field and hardly hitting it with his bat. It’s a proud player like Martinez sitting in the playoffs. And it is an established elder statesman like Ottavino that was left off the roster but was still in the bullpen sitting with his teammates.
I agree there Gus. There were lots of signs that the team chemistry was really good, and I do believe that makes a real difference in how individuals perform and how the team performs. Im glad you brought up Torrens, because he played a critical role in helping the pitching staff shut down runners and changing that entire narrative, but did not complain. My overall point is that sure we can add up the WAR for every player and use that as one guide as to how the new hires performed, but to me that is a blunt tool that only tells a fraction of reality.
(Nodding in agreement)
It’s not fair to ask any decision maker, especially one that needs to predict someone else’s production, to bat 1.000. This year’s Mets pickups were like when Anthopoulos a few years back traded for two players barely on the baseball radar at the time in Eddie Rosario and Jorge Soler. At the time, Soler was in Kansas City doing ok-ish and Rosario was a stiff and Grossman was not doing mucus they come to Atlanta, one of them is NLCS MVP, the other World Series MVP and Grossman lot it up too. And Anthopoulos looks like a genius.
B+ or A not a very big difference!
Well, if you thought that the B+ was generous to begin with, then it is a big difference.