I Wake Up Everyday Thankful I'm Not David Stearns

Running the Mets is hard enough. Doing it with the expectations that you're the savior? Sheesh...

Knowing what you know now, wouldn't it be nice to travel back in time all the way to 2014? What happened in 2014, you ask? Exactly. Nothing of consequence. Remember those kinds of years? No, you don't. Those are wildly underrated. 

I'm thinking a lot about 2014 lately though. It's in the context of what happened immediately after in 2015. The last day of the 2014 Mets season. They won their 79th game, thanks in part to Lucas Duda's 30th homer of the year, which was a big deal! 79-83 was the best record they had compiled in half a decade. (And better than they performed in 2023.) Gary Cohen said it best, that the future was bright, and the expectations are higher now come next year. It was a nice dream to me that happened to come true. And I find it's the best case scenario for the here and now.

What were we thinking about on that late Sunday afternoon in 2014? Hope that unexpectedly good rookie pitcher keeps his momentum going! (Jacob deGrom/Kodai Senga). A full season of our high-profile stud hurler will be nice. (Matt Harvey/José Quintana). If something were to befall our closer for some wacky reason, at least we got a good understudy! (Jenrry Mejia-Jeurys Familia/Edwin Díaz.) I look forward to seeing how our rookie catcher improves upon his first season (Travis d'Arnaud-Francisco Álvarez). 

Come on, this is the Mets we're talking about. Positivity leads us to disappointment! For each argument on the plus side of the ledger, there's a "Yeah, but" tailgating. They had a bad record in one-run games (duh.) Yeah, but not every team with a poor one-run game record turns that around the following season. Shut up, haters! Francisco Lindor ended up having a great year! Yeah, but he only did well really in low-leverage situations, says one dude. Pete Alonso hit a lot of homers again. Yeah, but the batting average. Plus I heard he's toxic! (Can't the man sue the fool for slander?) Starling Marte will be back next year finally healthy for the first time since 2022. Yeah, but are you sure? Like everyone else, he'll only be getting older. 

Enter David Stearns, The One. The Savior. The object of Steve Cohen's desire to run the Mets seemingly forever and a day. His official title will be "President of Baseball Operations." Maybe he'll be like Theo Epstein in Chicago. Yeah, but. Or Chaim Bloom in Boston. The one thing that is known is the hype is big for this one guy, a fellow human being like you and even me. 

Even with a budget bigger than Mercury (I don't buy the 2024 payroll decrease noise), Stearnsy, as he doesn't like to be called, will have a lot of big questions to answer, a lot of yeah buts to consider. Sign Pete Alonso long-term? Okay, that's an easy one. Pretty sure he hasn't put pen to paper yet because Cohen knows that Pete knows that Cohen is rich as hell, and the brakes have to be pumped a bit before the final years and money figures get settled. 

The actual questions: Blow up the bullpen or nah? David Peterson? Tylor Megill? Do those names tickle your fancy? Or do they look better in Guardian uniforms or whomever. Who are your #3, #4, and #5 starters anyways? Who's on third? (Don't say I Don't Know.) Can you get a damn thing for Daniel Vogelbach? Are we really going to let Brandon Nimmo get away with completely changing his hitting approach in the first year of an eight-year contract? Like, what the hell? Will Jeff McNeil ever settle down and play one damn position? Is DJ "Babe" Stewart a thing? Is Alvarez his first half self or his second half self? Shohei? Or Shonay? Oh and who’s the next manager? Will he be as cool of an uncle as Buck was with Francisco Lindor’s daughter?

Personally, I'm exhausted. I can only imagine how The Savior feels.