Stearns says Mets have enough cash to chase anyone as club seeks `true sustainable competitiveness'

 

[October 24, 2024]  By MIKE FITZPATRICK

NEW YORK (AP) — Before his news conference Wednesday to wrap up an exhilarating season, New York Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns bumped into pending free agent Pete Alonso at Citi Field.

“I told him I was about to answer a lot of questions about him. He told me, `Good luck,'" Stearns said with a grin.

“He’s a great Met. I hope we have him back. I think we both understand this is a process and everyone’s got their own interests and Pete deserves to go out into the free agent market and see what’s out there and then ultimately make the best choice for him and his family.”

The slugger's immediate future is one important issue heading into an offseason full of them for the Mets, coming off a surprising playoff run that ended Sunday with a Game 6 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Championship Series.

“I think we probably ran out of gas a little bit. We had pushed our guys really hard from June 1 on because we needed to,” Stearns said. “Every single game in the regular season mattered and then clearly every single game in the postseason mattered. And that’s part of it. We also ran into a really, really talented Dodgers team that was playing about as good a baseball as you could play.”

To overcome those Dodgers next season, not to mention Philadelphia and Atlanta in their own division, the Mets will need to restock the pitching staff.

Luis Severino (11-7, 3.91 ERA) and Jose Quintana (10-10, 3.75) can become free agents. Sean Manaea (12-6, 3.47) seems likely to decline a $13.5 million player option for 2025 and join them on the open market.

Those three veterans combined for 94 regular-season starts and 10 more in the playoffs as New York finished two wins short of the World Series.

“This isn’t new to us. We faced a similar task last offseason. We’re going to have to replace innings,” Stearns said. “Certainly part of that could potentially be from some of those guys returning, or we may look elsewhere. But we’re going to have to add starting pitching. We’re going to have to add multiple starters. We understand that. We went into last offseason with the same need and I think we’ll be able to do it.”

Stearns has been particularly good at finding pitching, not just this year with the Mets but going back to his time running the small-market Milwaukee Brewers.

He brought in Severino and Manaea last winter on short-term deals, and both delivered in a big way.

“There are no hard-and-fast rules for me,” Stearns said. “If we look at the history of long-term investments with pitchers, it is not overwhelmingly a rosy picture. But there are pitchers who have gone into their mid- or late-30s and pitched very well. And so if we think we can identify that, then there could be exceptions.”

New York Mets' Pete Alonso hits a three-run home run against the Los Angeles Dodgers during the first inning in Game 5 of a baseball NL Championship Series, Friday, Oct. 18, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

Corbin Burnes, Max Fried and Blake Snell are top-of-the-rotation starters available in free agency. Burnes, who turned 30 on Tuesday, was drafted and developed by the Brewers while Stearns was in charge. The right-hander won the 2021 NL Cy Young Award with Milwaukee before getting traded to Baltimore last winter.

“I think it’s too early to determine exactly where we’re going to take our shots,” Stearns said. “I would expect us to be active in free agency.”

Once contract options are decided next month, New York will probably have more than $100 million coming off a major league-high 2024 payroll of $332 million under owner Steve Cohen.

“We’ve got financial flexibility. It means that pretty much the entirety of the player universe is potentially accessible to us. That’s an enormous opportunity. I envision us taking advantage of that opportunity and being aggressive in certain spaces,” Stearns said.

“We’re also not going to do anything that hamstrings us in future years and prevents us from continually adding, supplementing to our core group.”

Alonso earned a $20.5 million salary this season and batted .240 with 34 homers, 88 RBIs and a .788 OPS while playing in all 162 regular-season games. Those numbers at the plate were down from previous years, but the fan-favorite first baseman was productive during the postseason and came through with several pivotal home runs. He also drew 12 walks in 13 games.

“We have great memories from this run,” Stearns said. “It’s also time for us to begin 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.”

Alonso turns 30 in December and is represented by high-profile agent Scott Boras.

“Who Pete is as a person is important. What he means to this franchise is important. Who he is as a player is also important and what he contributes on the field. There’s no magic formula to this," Stearns said.

“Pete and I frankly have never really talked about his contract face-to-face. I think those conversations are best left generally with a player’s representative. But Pete and I talked about the team plenty. He’s very invested in our group. Certainly was very invested in this team this year and obviously got some enormous hits for us down the stretch.”

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