In contrast to different Mets followers, David Stearns wasn’t ready for the Mets to break down when he got here to video games as a child. With the Mets off to a improbable begin to the 2025 season, there may be palpable pleasure for the NL East’s finest group, particularly because the Mets begin a seven-game swing towards two division rivals Monday. A fanbase simply triggered by reminiscences of disasters previous appears to have extra optimism than standard.
Perhaps they’re taking cues from one in all their very own — Stearns.
“I was never waiting for the other shoe to drop; I was really excited to go to Shea [Stadium] and boo John Rocker,” Stearns mentioned Monday at Citi Area forward of the beginning of a sequence towards the Philadelphia Phillies. “Look, every year is a new year, right? And frankly, what we accomplished last year doesn’t have a whole lot of bearing on how this is all going to play out this year. I think I feel like we got a good team.”
The Mets introduced again a number of of the important thing gamers from the 2024 group that reached Recreation 6 of the NLCS. Followers have been completely happy the Mets have been getting the band again collectively, anticipating the group to select up proper the place they left off. In some methods it feels as if they’ve achieved that, with comeback wins and walk-off bombs displaying the group has maintained its never-say-die perspective.
However behind the scenes, Stearns hoped to keep away from the optics of bringing again final yr’s group with the hope of replicating final yr. There are too many variables in a brand new season, too some ways issues can differ from what occurred up to now for anybody to have the ability to fairly anticipate that the identical group might replicate the previous.
The 2024 Mets fell wanting their final purpose of successful a World Collection. The 2025 roster needed to be a stronger one.
“The only thing I was concerned about — I know we talked about a lot internally — was that we didn’t we didn’t want to fall into the trap of trying to recreate 2024,” Stearns mentioned. “It was going to be different. It is different. I think we’ve got a really good group in there and they’re bonding and they’re finding their identity. But it’s happening organically. It’s not because we’re trying to recreate something that happened organically last year.”
To date, he’s prevented having to take an excessive amount of warmth for the gamers he didn’t deliver again as a result of the gamers he changed them with are producing.
There was a little bit of blowback after Luis Severino mentioned he would have taken lower than the $67 million the A’s are paying him to return to the Mets. The choice to not re-sign well-liked infielder Jose Iglesias, whose hit tune “OMG” turned the anthem of the summer time for followers and a rallying cry for the group final yr, was criticized as properly when second baseman Jeff McNeil was injured in spring coaching.
As a substitute, Stearns had right-hander Clay Holmes convert from a reliever to a starter, and the Mets are utilizing Luisangel Acuña and Brett Baty at second. Holmes is 2-1 with a 3.16 ERA over 5 begins, whereas Baty and Acuña have picked up their manufacturing in current weeks. The Mets have been capable of face up to the lack of three beginning pitchers (left-hander Sean Manaea, right-handers Frankie Montas and Paul Blackburn) with an excellent bullpen, and the ground-ball pitchers are nonetheless getting comparatively stable protection behind them.
“I’m proud of how our entire roster and the depth has performed here,” Stearns mentioned. “We’re going to continue to need that to happen over the course of this entire season to have a successful year. It’s nice that so far it has been the case.”
Nonetheless, nobody on the roster has carried out like first baseman Pete Alonso. By means of 22 video games, the slugger has compiled 1.5 fWAR. He’s pushed in 24 runs, the second-most in baseball behind Aaron Choose’s 25, has the second-highest OPS (1.171) and paced the Mets with six dwelling runs.
With groups being reluctant to pitch to Juan Soto, Alonso has turn into much more essential to the success of the Mets.
“What Pete is doing is as good of a start as you could envision for any human,” Stearns mentioned. “This is pretty impressive. He’s locked in, his zone control is incredible right now, he’s hitting everything hard.”
There isn’t a early season lag within the attendance this yr. The Mets have averaged 36,705 followers via their first 10 dwelling video games, the seventh-most in baseball, and 4 of these groups have performed extra video games at dwelling. Juan Soto and wins have solved the attendance problem.
“I get a sneak peek at some of the attendance numbers ahead of a homestand and with some of them I did double-takes,” Stearns mentioned. “It’s like, ‘Wow, that’s really good for April.’ Not only have the numbers been good on paper, but it’s felt like that in the ballpark.”
It’s too early within the season to declare 2025 successful. The Mets have led the division in April just a few instances, solely to be on the golf course by October. Adversity will come, however Stearns sees a group geared up to deal with it.
