It was one of George Young’s great lines, one of many, and oft-repeated because it was so great. This one came in Ernie Accorsi’s office one day, when Ernie was still George’s assistant. George was grumping about the state of the team’s offense in general, and about one of his coaches in particular.
“When,” George asked Ernie that day, “does the guru start guru-ing?”
When does David Stearns really do that with the Mets?
Or ask the question another way, after a week when Pete Alonso hit a famous Mets home run and passed Darryl Strawberry to become the Mets’ all-time home run leader:
What home run has Stearns hit so far with his own players?
We know how desperate Steve Cohen was to bring Stearns here from Milwaukee, Cohen acting at the time as if he’d hired someone who’d helped invent baseball, and not just with the Brewers. We know how big Cohen paid to get Stearns, because that’s what Uncle Steve does, it’s his default position, he pays big to get what he wants, from Juan Soto on down.
And we know how close the Mets came to the World Series in Stearns’ first year running the point at Citi Field. He took over a team that had won just 75 games — one year after winning 101 — and Stearns added Luis Severino to the team as a rental and saw Jesse Winker produce some very nice product. The Mets gave the Dodgers all they wanted.
Now here they were coming into the weekend basically as close to the Marlins as they were to the Phillies in the National League East, in such of a freefall that they also came into the weekend with just a half-game lead over the Cincinnati Reds for the last wild card slot in the National League. And it has reached the point where you have to say the same thing about a Mets team that currently looks like such a massive disappointment as you do about the Yankees:
This roster didn’t assemble itself.
This starting rotation didn’t assemble itself.
If the Mets turn this around, and somehow get as hot over the rest of August and into September as they were a year ago, then Stearns will get all the credit he deserves. We might even want to give him the game ball.
But if the Mets fall down the rest of the way the way they fell down in 2023, then this is the referendum on David Stearns’ first two years at Citi Field. Brian Cashman gets it all the time, but good, from Yankee fans; for them, banging away at Cashman on social media feels like the real national pastime. Stearns doesn’t get it as much from fans of his team. But, believe me, he’s getting there after the way the Mets really have fallen down over the past month.
Stearns did a lot with the Brewers, you better believe he did. But he sure isn’t the only reason they are where they are two years after he left. And since he’s been gone, and Matt Arnold has been in charge, well, just look at the Brewers go. It was Arnold, in fact, who was voted Executive of the Year for Major League Baseball last season.
This doesn’t mean that Stearns has forgotten everything he knows about baseball, or will turn out to be another small-market guy who can’t cut it in the big city. His grade for this year is still absolutely incomplete, because there is still too much baseball to be played. And, let’s face it, the team that beat the Mets last October in the NLCS — the Dodgers — hasn’t exactly been lighting the world on fire lately. The champions of the world have, in fact, looked a lot like a dumpster fire as they were blowing a 9-game lead against the Padres and getting good and passed in the NL West.
But this has been an interesting body of work here for Stearns. I like Carlos Mendoza a lot, and thought he should have been Manager of the Year in 2024, even ahead of Pat Murphy, who’s going to win the award going away this year. But even Mendoza wasn’t Stearns first choice to manage the Mets. Craig Counsell was, after Stearns didn’t even have the good grace to personally tell Buck Showalter he’d been fired. That goes on Stearns’ permanent record, too.
Stearns didn’t bring Juan Soto to the Mets. Uncle Steve did that. Stearns didn’t bring back Alonso, because Steve Cohen did that, too. And we’ll never know, not really, if Stearns would have been happier if Alonso had decided to go play baseball somewhere else last winter.
But what are Stearns personnel triumphs to this point? Severino? Winker? Maybe Ryan Helsley will turn into what Stearns thought he was getting from the Cardinals at the deadline. For now, though, the jury is very much still out on him. And Cedric Mullins. I liked both those deals at the time. So did a lot of Mets fans. But this isn’t about public opinion polls. It’s about results. Of course there’s still time for the Mets to get good results from Helsley and Mullins and Tyler Rogers, another guy who was supposed to enable the Mets to bullpen their way to the top. For now, all Mets pitching looks like a New York mess. Stearns has assembled a starting rotation of No. 3 and No. 4 starters behind Kodai Senga. We keep hearing about this “pitching lab” the Mets are supposed to have going for them. Who’s the face of that, Clay Holmes? If Holmes keeps going the way he’s going, he’s going to end up back in the bullpen.
Were the Mets in first place not too terribly long ago? They were. But you look back now and just imagine them having been way over their skis. Coming into the weekend, their record was actually two games better after 121 games than it was a year ago. But please apply the eye test to the Mets of August ‘25, look at all these blown leads, and tell me you really think they’re better off this year than they were last year.
We saw them turn last season around, boy, did we ever. There is still plenty of time for them to do that again. Maybe Helsley and Rogers and Mullins will turn into personnel triumphs for David Stearns. We’re going to see about that.
Here is what you hear about Stearns, nearly two years into this: He’s improved the Mets on the margins. The margins? What margins? He’s working for Daddy Big Bucks. The Mets were supposed to get a lot better with Soto. They haven’t. It hasn’t been the manager’s fault, not by a long shot. This isn’t somebody else’s roster now for David Stearns. It’s his. For better or worse. Root for better. Sooner rather than later.
HISTORY LESSON FOR THE METS, A FUN FACT ABOUT GIOLITO & JERRY’S RUNNING A CIRCUS IN BIG D …
If the Mets want to grasp at history, here is history for which they should be grasping these days:
The 2000 Yankees, who lost 15 of their last 18 games, ended up with 87 wins, and still won the World Series.
Hey, I’m trying to help here.
Kyle Schwarber is MVP.
Remember this about the Padres:
They were ahead two games to one in their division series against the Dodgers last October.
The Dodgers had to go with a bullpen game in Game 4.
After that the Padres, out of nowhere, just stopped hitting.
Never scored another run last season.
That could have crushed them.
Obviously, they didn’t.
Lucas Giolito’s grandfather, Warren Frost, played Susan’s father on “Seinfeld,” and I’d like to know where else you get fun facts like that?
Wouldn’t it be something if Jaxson Dart really is the one for the Giants?
I know how much the Cowboys are worth.
I know how much oxygen they take up on ESPN, almost on a daily basis, as if Jerry Jones is never out of season.
They just no longer matter on the field.
And haven’t for a long time.
As passionate as their fan base is.
There are times — and this is one of the, with Micah Parsons — when they look like the biggest clown college in the league.
The Cowboys are run by an 80-something man who needs attention the way the rest of us need oxygen.
People say, oh, but look how much they’re worth.
Only if Jerry sells the team.
He won’t.
I’m starting to feel a little hurt that Mike Brown hasn’t added me to his coaching staff.
If it’s a Spike Lee movie and Denzel’s in it, I’m there.
Like, so there.
The competition only I’m watching three-quarters of the way into the season, just for fun:
Juan Soto, 70 RBI.
Anthony Volpe, 65 RBI.
I believe the Yankees are a lot more worried about No. 99’s elbow than they’re letting on.
Once Aaron Boone and Carlos Mendoza make that first call to the bullpen, I can hear something my Hall of Fame pal Bill Madden used to say in the press box all the time:
“And so begins the endless search for the guy who doesn’t have it tonight.”
Guess what?
Both local football teams could get better on the field this season and not be able to prove it very much in the standings.
Whatever happened to the Miami Heat?
They never write, they never call.
Kind of fun not having to hang on Aaron Rodgers’ every word anymore, right?
Put me down as thinking the Lions are going to miss both of last year’s coordinators more than somewhat.
Not sure when Michigan is going to win another national championship in football, but they sure are leading the league in coaching suspensions, right?
Has anybody asked Jalen Brunson how he feels about playing fast?
Asking for Knick friends.
Taylor Swift is one appearance with the Kelce brothers away from having her own football show on ESPN.
James Patterson and Mike Lupica’s new Jane Smith thriller, “The Hamptons Lawyer,” remains in the Top 10 of New York Times Best Sellers and Publishers Weekly in its third week on-sale.
