David Stearns' approach with Mets starting rotation worked last year, but will it again this season?
New York Mets pitcher Clay Holmes during a spring training workout at Port St. Lucie, FL. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — As questions swirl around another rebuilt Mets rotation, one of baseball’s majestic aces was just down the road from the team’s spring training complex Monday morning.
But as much as the stunningly fit Sandy Koufax — now 89 years young — still looks like he could anchor a big-league staff, he was not among the pitchers to report at Clover Park. Koufax was having coffee with Terry Collins, the last manager to get the Mets to an NLCS before Carlos Mendoza did back in October.
Collins, of course, deployed a far different rotation, relying on a promising homegrown stable that was supposed to set up the Mets into the next decade: Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz. Instead, they watched those dreams gradually disintegrate, providing yet another cruel lesson in the fragility and fickle nature of starting pitching.
Current president of baseball operations David Stearns wasn’t around for those franchise-crushing developments. Nor was he at the helm when owner Steve Cohen tried to skip a few steps by blowing cash on a pair of quickly fading future Hall of Famers in Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander.
But Stearns, for the second straight season, is behaving like someone trying to thread the needle with his rotation, bypassing Max Fried ($218M) and Corbin Burnes ($210M) in favor of using strategic mid-commitment, highly-motivated investments to hopefully bridge the gap with maturing prospects. It’s a risky gambit, but with minimal financial downside, and Stearns — with Cohen’s blessing — is no doubt emboldened by hitting the jackpot last year, when his short-term deals all paid off in surprising fashion.
Subtracting the injured ace Kodai Senga, who pitched a total of 10 1/3 innings all season (including playoffs), Stearns paid roughly $43 million for the core of the 2024 rotation — equal to the price tag for one season of either Scherzer or Verlander.
This year? Presumably Senga is back, at a cost of $15 million, followed by the re-upped Sean Manaea ($25M), Frankie Montas — who takes the vacated Luis Severino spot at a cost of $17M — and Stearns’ nearly $13 million dice roll on converting former Yankees closer Clay Holmes into a starting pitcher.
On paper, that certainly doesn’t sound like a World Series rotation. But in mid-February, it doesn’t have to be just yet. Stearns also is banking on David Peterson’s upward trend along with depth pieces like Tylor Megill, the newly signed Griffin Canning, last year’s deadline acquisition Paul Blackburn and highly touted prospects like Brandon Sproat, Blade Tidwell and Nolan McLean.
Not convinced? We don’t blame you. Which is why a potential trade for someone like front-liner Dylan Cease has to remain on the radar, given the Padres’ front-office turmoil, and Stearns needs to keep his chips handy.
At the moment, however, the Mets really trust in a process that transformed last year's handful of questions marks into a rotation that was tied for fourth in the National League in ERA (3.91) with the Padres, while clocking the third-most innings (892 2/3) behind East rivals Atlanta (904 1/3) and Philadelphia (903).
No one would have predicted that a year ago, especially when Senga disappeared to the IL with a shoulder injury before even throwing a Grapefruit-League pitch. But what everyone else labeled a disaster, the pitchers saw as opportunity, and that’s the same mindset this February on the eve of spring training.
“I think competition brings out the best in guys,” said Canning, who’s vying for a back-end spot after compiling a 4.78 ERA in 94 career starts (and five relief appearances) for the Angels.
The Mets believe it’s much more than that. Last season, Manaea, Severino and Jose Quintana were all pitching for their next contracts, which probably helps explain why all three registered their most innings in years. The oft-injured Montas, like Severino, has the ability to flip this one season into a much more lucrative multiyear deal. And if Holmes, who turns 32 in March, succeeds as a starter, he’ll have the chance to double his annual salary for years to come after 2026.
Since Cohen’s takeover, the Mets have become an industry leader in modern analytics, upgrading to cutting-edge technology and increasing personnel in those departments. It’s a big part of their identity now — and sales pitch, as Canning detailed after Monday’s workouts. But as Canning threw a bullpen alongside Holmes, it was a reminder of Stearns constantly trying to find a competitive edge in the margins, even as he operates a $320 million payroll that ranks second in MLB.
Holmes, who flunked out of his closer’s role in the Bronx, is one of Stearns’ biggest gambles to date when it comes to a rotation role. He’s hedged that bet by knowing Holmes could still go back to being a set-up man, if necessary. But for now, he’s penciled into a starting spot, and charting that journey is going to be one of the more fascinating spring training storylines for the Mets.
“It’s a difficult transition,” said reliever Ryne Stanek, who mentioned that the Holmes maneuver was a topic of conversation Monday among some of the Mets. “It’s not always going to be a linear thing. It’s probably going to have some times when innings limits come up. I don’t know if that’s the case — I don’t know their plan. But it’s hard to add 125 innings to somebody’s tally from the year before. But he’s a big, physical guy. If anybody can do it, it’s someone like him. That looks like it makes sense to me.”
Consider the Mets’ whole rotation a work in progress at this point. Aside from Koufax, no sure things showed up Monday in Port St. Lucie.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
