Three Mets takeaways from the MLB GM meetings
Pete Alonso of the Mets reacts after his first inning three-run home run against the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 5 of the NLCS at Citi Field on Oct. 18. Credit: Jim McIsaac
SAN ANTONIO — As Mets officials departed Texas on Thursday with the offseason-initiating general managers’ meetings complete, they did so with a better understanding of what their coming months will look like. They didn’t make any deals, but they laid the groundwork for plenty.
Here are three takeaways from the GM meetings for the Mets:
1. Pete Alonso’s free agency is fascinating — and seemingly a subplot.
All of the buzz so far — even through a Mets lens — is about another Scott Boras client, Juan Soto. The Mets are in. The Yankees are in. Plenty of other teams are in. With Soto sitting alone in the absolute top tier of free agents, Alonso and everybody else are relegated to second fiddle.
Will the free-agent market overall have to wait for the Soto domino to fall before other players start to find new homes? That was the case to some degree with Shohei Ohtani last offseason.
“That’s a great question,” Boras said. “Unfortunately, it’s not one that I can answer. It’s one that they [teams] can. I have no indications in discussion with certainly the Mets that there’s any order of operation other than the desire to sign good players.”
President of baseball operations David Stearns said, not answering the question: “We’re going to stay in contact with a wide variety of players throughout free agency and that includes right now.”
That opens up plenty of related questions. Can the Mets sign both Soto and Alonso? (Of course Steve Cohen can swing it.) Do they want to? (Unclear.)
If the Mets are chasing the shiny new toy in Soto, how do they approach talks with homegrown star and fan favorite Alonso? Do they need to manage emotions there, making sure Alonso isn’t offended by not being the top priority? What if they need to make a call on Alonso before Soto (a sequence of events Boras probably would guard against)?
2. The Mets need a centerfielder . . . or do they?
Stearns isn’t so sure.
“I don’t view it as a hole,” he said.
He talked up Tyrone Taylor, the backup outfielder who took over in center in October, and mentioned: “Certainly bringing in someone who potentially has the ability to play centerfield alongside him is a path we can go down.”
Maybe that is a lefthanded hitter to platoon with the righty-swinging Taylor.
Brandon Nimmo primarily will stick to leftfield, Stearns said.
The free-agent market is, uh, thin. The top guy probably is Harrison Bader, whom the Mets barely played in the playoffs (and who probably will want to go to a team for which he will be the clear everyday option).
Stearns loves to engage the trade market — which is how he got Taylor from the Brewers for very little a year ago — so that is an option as always.
Perhaps Stearns’ comfort with Taylor and/or Taylor-plus means that is a stopgap solution.
The Mets could give one of their youngsters a chance, if not necessarily at the outset. They have two shortstops, Luisangel Acuna and Jett Williams, who have learned center. Williams won’t be major league-ready for Opening Day, but as the Mets demonstrated in 2024, the first version of the roster won’t be the one they finish with.
“He can play a quality centerfield,” Stearns said. “He’s a great athlete, and I think whatever we ask of Jett, he’s gonna be able to accomplish.”
3. Stearns’ inner circle has evolved.
After significant front-office turnover — lots of layoffs, ensuing hiring — a year into Stearns’ tenure, senior leadership looks different.
Consider their five-person contingent at the GM meetings. Joining Stearns were Eduardo Brizuela, a right-hand man and former Brewers top lieutenant who is the vice president and special assistant to the president of baseball operations; Jonathan Strangio, who newly holds the title of assistant general manager; Nick Spar, recently promoted to senior director of baseball operations, and Kathryn Crimmins, recently promoted (for the second time in a year) to senior director of baseball initiatives.
About the only inner-circle member absent was assistant GM Ben Zauzmer (MLB asked teams to limit the number of executives they brought). Stearns also has heads in departments such as player development (Andy Green) and amateur scouting (Kris Gross) who aren’t necessarily in deep on the day-to-day major-league stuff.
That more or less lines up with what people said about Stearns at the time of his Mets hiring: He keeps a tight inner circle — he isn’t adding a GM as his No. 2, for example — but doesn’t obsess over having “his” people. Once upon a time, he inherited Brizuela, then middle management in Milwaukee, then kept him around and had him climb the ladder. Heck, three of the four accompanying Stearns this week were brought to the Mets by Billy Eppler (and two of them had been with Eppler’s Angels). Stearns took a year with the Mets to figure out what worked and whom he liked and made adjustments off that.
“He wants to make sure he has people around him who he can trust,” Brizuela said during spring training of how Stearns operates. “David comes over [to Milwaukee nearly a decade ago], he does a really quick assessment of the organization and, luckily enough, he keeps a lot of people who were there.”
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
