Mets defensively ‘markedly better’ after offseason additions: David Stearns

Now that the remake is all but finished – apparently, anyway – David Stearns knows the real test will come from March to October.

But he stands by the moves he made this offseason — both the additions and the subtractions — after an ugly 2025.

“We have confidence in this group,” the Mets baseball director said Thursday during a Zoom call from Citi Field. “We think this group fits together well.”

There were a lot of questions as the offseason dragged on as to whether that would be the case, especially in the infield.

Stearns added Bo Bichette, who – like Jorge Polanco – will be asked to play a new position after Stearns said one of his main offseason goals was to improve the team’s run prevention.

That means Bichette will be at third base and Polanco at first, even though they have been shortstops for almost their entire professional careers.

“There’s no question we’re asking two guys to learn some new functions,” Stearns said. “We also ask two boys with a very high baseball aptitude, [who are] good athletes and spent most of their careers at the shortstop position learning new positions on the sand.

Stearns acknowledged, “There will be learning curves. We will make mistakes.”

But he added: “I also have a lot of confidence that both players will come through and play their positions at a pretty high level.”

And he also pointed out what he believed was the most important part of constructing a defense.

“We’re looking at what our defense looks like in the middle,” Stearns said of Francisco Lindor playing alongside the newly acquired Marcus Semien at second, with another defensive superhero, Luis Robert Jr., in the middle. “We really like how our defense looks in the middle right now. … We’re obviously better in some key defensive positions in the middle.”

It’s all part of the changes Stearns tried to make after the Mets fell far short of the playoffs in what should have been a strong season after reaching the NLCS in 2024 and signing Juan Soto from the Yankees.

“Going into the offseason and thinking back to our ’25 season, we made the decision that we had to do better,” Stearns said. “We weren’t going to bring back the same group. And that’s what got a big part of our strategy to this point. I think we are going into this year with a very good, talented group, but also a group that looks a bit different. There will be a lot of guys in our clubhouse that have absolutely nothing to do with what happened to us in ’25. And I think that’s healthy and I think that’s good for us.”

That includes some of the more recent moves, like trading for Freddy Peralta to boost the rotation, making improvements to the bullpen with Devin Williams and Luke Weaver after opening the offseason by letting Pete Alonso go without a fight, trading Brandon Nimmo and Jeff McNeil, and losing the Dodgers for Edwin Díaz.

Despite his optimism with spring training just weeks away, Stearns refused to dip his toes in the prediction game and wasn’t ready to make any bold statements about his squad.

“We have a really tough division,” Stearns said when asked if he thought the Mets had the best team in the NL East. “We have some really good teams and some teams that are getting better. Until we win a division, we can’t claim to be at the top. We have to keep going. … We still have work to do and we are committed to doing it.”