ORLANDO, FL — It’s like Elon Musk trading in his Tesla for a rusted Ford Taurus.
It’s seeing Beyonce giving up her career to be a lounge singer.
It’s Leonardo DiCaprio walking away from films to do local tire commercials.
And in real life, we are witnessing the dismantling of the New York Mets, piece by torturous piece.
Mets All-Star outfielder Brandon Nimmo was traded one week, All-Star closer Edwin Diaz defected the next, and now the trilogy is complete with hometown hero Pete Alonso departing Wednesday without even getting a contract offer to stay.
You can take Mets president David Stearns out of Milwaukee, but you simply can’t take Milwaukee out of Stearns.
Stearns didn’t make himself available for comment to answer the vitriol directed his way on Wednesday.
He didn’t have the chance to being asked:
- “You don’t think Alonso, their tremendously homegrown product who’s one of the game’s premier power hitters, is worth more than a three-year contract?
- “You have so little respect for Alonso that you didn’t bother to even make an offer?’’
- “Do you actually believe that after losing your all-world closer, your left fielder who hit 25 homers is shipped off to Texas, and your first baseman who hit 36 homers, the team is still a contender?’’
- “Are you out of your stinking mind?‘
“I’m very optimistic about where our offseason is headed,’ Stearns told reporters Tuesday. “We’ve certainly got work to do, but there are a lot of good players out there, and I’m confident that we’re really going to like where our team is once we get to Opening Day.”
Well, unless those players are Darryl Strawberry, John Franco and Keith Hernandez coming back in their primes, Mets fans can’t find a possible world in which this would be true.
The cruel, cold-hearted facts Mets’ fans don’t want to hear is that their team has been grossly underachieving.
They’ve had record-setting payrolls since owner Steve Cohen bought the team four years ago.
They spent a record $765 million on free agent Juan Soto a year ago.
They gave shortstop Francisco Lindor $341 million in 2021.
And what has it gotten them?
Nothing more than heartache.
They had a historic collapse down the stretch last season, and just like the Colorado Rockies, Pittsburgh Pirates and Los Angeles Angels, failed to make the playoffs.
Sure, they could have brought back Diaz on another five-year, $100 million contract instead of seeing him leave for a three-year, $69 million deal with the Dodgers.
They could have given Alonso three times as much as his five-year, $155 million deal with the Baltimore Orioles without blinking.
And they certainly didn’t need to trade Nimmo for Texas Rangers second baseman Marcus Semien.
Yet, the reality is that their three longest-tenured players had seven years to win in Queens, and miserably failed.
Just once did they win more than 90 games.
Just twice did they make the playoffs.
And only once did they win a playoff series.
The way Stearns saw it, it’s time for a culture change.
“I think once we got into the offseason and had the time to fully reflect on our team,’ Stearns said after the Nimmo trade, “is when I became convinced that we weren’t just going to run it back. That we were going to make some changes.’’
Sure, the folks in Queens hate it.
The talk shows already are filled with disgust.
The back pages in the New York tabloids will be vicious.
They’re furious that Cohen, who’s worth $21 billion, doesn’t open up his checkbook and make the Dodgers look like a small-market team.
Yet, Cohen recruited and made Stearns, the second-highest paid executive in the game behind only Dodgers president Andrew Friedman, to have him shape the team.
Stearns told Cohen that anyone can simply write checks. He wanted to build the East Coast version of the Dodgers – only with a smaller payroll.
Now, we’ll see what Stearns has up his sleeve. He could steal outfielder Cody Bellinger away from the Yankees, sign power-hitting infielder Munetaka Murakami, and load up on pitching with a combination of starters Tatsuya Imai, Framber Valdez, Michael King or Zac Gallen, and relievers Robert Suarez and Luke Weaver.
Stearns has the power and flexibility to create the team he wants, one with sustained success, and who knows, one day end their World Series drought that has lasted since 1986.
This is what Stearns deeply desired all along, a chance to be creative just as he did in Milwaukee, formulating a team that will make Mets’ fans proud again.
He’s fully embracing the pressure that comes with it.
He just better be right.