David Stearns' talks with Mets to be president of baseball ops 'going well,' according to source

WASHINGTON — The Mets’ recent talks with David Stearns, their longtime front-office target, have been “going well,” a source with knowledge of them said, with signs pointing toward the former Brewers boss joining the organization.

Mets owner Steve Cohen has wanted to hire a president of baseball operations since he bought the team nearly three years ago and reiterated in June that he wanted to wait for “the right person.”

“At some point, someone’s gonna become available,” he said then.

Stearns became eligible to speak to other clubs about employment opportunities as of Aug. 1, The Athletic first reported. That allowed the Mets — and the Astros, according to multiple reports — to get a jumpstart on their offseason hiring and planning by engaging Stearns about the possibility of coming to Queens.

It is not clear if Cohen and the Mets are considering other candidates.

As a professional courtesy, it is standard across the majors for employees in the last year of their contract — who won’t be staying with their organization — to be set free to discuss their possible next job with other teams before the end of the season.

The timing of Stearns’ availability is convenient for the Mets, who want somebody who can “hit the ground running,” as Cohen put it in June. Hiring somebody by, say, the end of the regular season would give the new-look front office all of October to jell and plan before the offseason begins in earnest in November.

The Mets’ past two front-office searches ended in mid-December and mid-November, suboptimal timing that impacted other decisions.

During his first search for a head of baseball operations, in the fall of 2020, Cohen’s request to interview Stearns was declined, as was the Brewers' right since Stearns was under contract. He ran their baseball operations for seven years — Milwaukee reached the playoffs in four of them — but stepped down into an advisory role after last season.

Stearns, 38, is a Manhattan native who grew up a Mets fan, graduated from Harvard in 2007 and interned in the Mets’ front office in 2008. Among his other professional stops: three seasons (2012-15) with the Astros as assistant general manager.

The Mets have been making room in their front office, including at the top of a couple of key departments, for an eventual president of baseball operations to bring in his own people. Last week, they parted ways with director of player development Kevin Howard. Before the season, they let go of assistant GM Bryn Alderson, who oversaw professional scouting, and replaced him only internally.

A president of baseball operations would be above general manager Billy Eppler. Cohen has spoken highly of Eppler — whom he hired in November 2021, after an elongated second search for a POBO yielded nobody — in recent months.

Cohen said last month that Eppler was “fully supportive” of Cohen’s idea of bringing in a baseball executive with a higher title.

“It's just a question of finding the right person,” Cohen said, adding that Eppler did a “phenomenal job” at the trade deadline.

Finally with access to Stearns, Cohen has gotten to know somebody who seems to check a lot of his boxes.

"I don't want a rookie doing this,” he said in June. “We've got a solid infrastructure in place. Solid management. So I want to bring in somebody that's complimentary. I want someone that can come into this organization and hit the ground running, not create problems or conflicts. Like I said, I'm taking my time. Hopefully I find the right person. And if I don't find the right person this year, I'll wait.”

By Tim Healey

timothy.healey@newsday.com@timbhealey

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.