David Stearns knows what it is like to live in two baseball worlds, trying to honor the present without disrupting the future.
While running the Brewers’ baseball operations nothing exemplified that like dealing Josh Hader on Aug. 1, 2022 with Milwaukee leading the NL Central by three games. Stearns wanted to maximize a trade return that would be less in the offseason with one year to free agency and a $14 million-ish salary that the industry would know Milwaukee did not want on its tight payroll.
The move perhaps cost the Brewers a 2022 playoff spot as players became incensed by what they viewed as a retreat from trying to win in real time. But it perhaps did have the desired long-range impact. Milwaukee won the 2023 NL Central after using a piece of the initial deal (Esteury Ruiz) to land its best player last year, catcher William Contreras, plus valuable setup man Joel Payamps; not to mention the Brewers also have one of their best prospects, lefty Robert Gasser, who came in the Hader swap.
So Stearns is quite familiar with playing for today while emphasizing tomorrow, the mandate with which he was hired by the Mets as president of baseball operations. As a veteran agent who has discussed clients with Stearns said of the organization: “The priority explained to us was they are going to try to win as many games as possible [in 2024] without impacting the long-term goal of being a sustained championship contender.”
But the Brewers are not the Mets. Stearns might have worked for a New York-born financial titan in Milwaukee in Mark Attanasio, but the New York-born financial behemoth he works for now, Steve Cohen, is the richest owner in the sport.
That is why you can hear this from an executive who said his perception is the Mets are going full bore in trying to land Japanese stars Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shota Imanaga, among others, “They’re not messing around. I don’t think they have the stomach for a year or two to get the ship turned around.”
Or as someone who knows Stearns well understated in comparing the economic reality of what Stearns faced with the Brewers as compared to the Mets, “David will adapt to having more choices.”
Stearns’ Mets made their first free-agent agreement Wednesday, a one-year, $13 million pact with Luis Severino. The Mets are gambling on a talented, but injury-prone and regressing righty. If they fix him, they have a starter. At worst, perhaps they have a power reliever. And if all goes wrong — like it did last year when Severino had a 6.65 ERA for the Yankees — the deal ends after the coming season.
But this is not the Mets’ whole strategy. Cohen built by far the largest payroll ever last season and then approved potentially eating $88.2 million to trade Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander for desirable prospects.
It speaks to what he is willing to do monetarily once committed to a concept. It is why so many executives spoken to think the Mets have an advantage with Yamamoto. Their viewpoint: Cohen can just let the righty’s representatives know the Mets will top any bid in the end. So, it is not just Stearns who must adapt to this new realm, but those who have followed New York baseball. Because the Yankees want Yamamoto too (among many others) and it was not long ago that the Wilpons would just stand down rather than indulge a financial mano a mano with the Yankees.
Now Cohen can see Yamamoto like a piece of art he just would not let anyone else outbid him for. Because Yamamoto fits the Mets’ priorities. The three-time winner of the Japanese version of the Cy Young can help the Mets make a playoff run in 2024. And you know how Juan Soto is so attractive because, among other items, he just turned 25 in October? Yamamoto is just two months older than Soto. So he has a chance to be an ace for a long time.
Beyond costing the Mets a compensation draft pick, free agent Shohei Ohtani also would not alter future Mets strategies, as long as Cohen is willing to support $300 million-plus payrolls. But are the Mets actually in it for the two-way star who will not pitch in 2024 following Tommy John surgery?
His camp has been so tight-lipped about his desires and has demanded the same silence from suitors. Thus, it is only on the untrustworthy MLB scuttlebutt highway that you hear the same teams mentioned most prominently with Ohtani, notably the Angels, Dodgers, Giants, Rangers, Cubs and Red Sox. You hear the Blue Jays more than the Mets — or the Yankees. But the secret is being tightly guarded with the expectation the winning franchise will get the metaphorical rose handed to it before the end of next week’s winter meetings.
But again, that the Mets are mentioned with Ohtani and especially Yamamoto — the two most desirable entities in free agency — at a time when the big picture is supposed to be their obsession merely reinforces that Stearns is no longer in Kansas, uh, Milwaukee.
He has a bankroll now that will afford the capability to buy luxurious properties to fit in both baseball worlds.