00:00When you come back to Stearns, right, and I thought about limiting this to this year in 2025 and looking at the last six months and going back to the trade deadline and all that, but if you really even go back to last offseason, if we really take that whole evaluation too, right, he's had a lot of restraint.
00:19That's the word I will use to be sort of nice here, right? He's had a lot of restraint, right? What does that tell you about his long-term roster building plan that he's got to – is it restraint or is it another R word that I've been using in these conversations? Is it rigidity? How do you like to look at this?
00:38So, I think restraint is the word. The athletic used the word the Mets will be disciplined in their approach this offseason.
00:49And, look, five words I just haven't said a lot over the past seven days. To give David Stearns credit, he does have a track record of building the infrastructure of organizations.
01:02It's what he did with Milwaukee. It's what he did in a lesser role in Houston, and it's what he's done with the Mets so far in helping build out their farm system.
01:11It's why it's so highly regarded. Even though he's only been here for two years, what he's been doing level by level within the farm system is building good habits.
01:22Like, you're seeing third and fourth round picks now being highly regarded within the organization.
01:27What that means from a free agency standpoint, I actually don't think you need to just stop it last year, Dexter.
01:33During his time in Milwaukee, combining it with the Mets, he has given out a contract more than three years in his entire tenure.
01:43Only four times. Two of those were extensions to Freddie Peralta and Christian Yelich.
01:47One was a signing of Lorenzo Cain, and one was Juan Soto that I think you and I both agree Steve Cohen had much more to do with that than David Stearns did.
01:55So, look, I do think he is really good at establishing the infrastructure of an organization.
02:03You know, I come from the basketball world.
02:05What I always appreciated about Tom Thibodeau was the, yes, his rigidity, which is why I think it's a fascinating comparison,
02:12but the floor that he established with the Knicks.
02:15And, like, they might not be as high as you want them to be, but they definitely won't go any lower than a place that they haven't been for the majority of this century.
02:25And, like, I always appreciated the floor that Tom Thibodeau established with the Knicks, even though they eventually decided they needed to explore a different ceiling.
02:34With David Stearns, he's now in charge of a franchise that's made the playoffs in back-to-back years exactly twice in their franchise history.
02:42I will understand if he's able to build a Brewers-like floor with the Mets, and Steve Cohen calls that a success.
02:51I do think there will come a time that he has to turn the Mets from a playoff contender into a championship contender,
02:56which will force him to go out of his comfort zone financially.
03:00But for now, I want to give him at least that benefit of the doubt that he's trying to establish a floor with his rigidity and with his discipline.
03:09And we'll see if it eventually leads to sustained success for a franchise that hasn't always been able to say they've had that.
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