Stearns Hired by Mets

[sveumrules]

3 minutes ago, Playing Catch said:

I realize that big-markets have gone all analytical before (Astros), but I do fear that the days of the Rays (and Brewers) being competitive by these means are numbered. Baseball really needs to figure out if they want to be the NFL, European (and Saudi) soccer, or a pleasant mesh in-between in terms of competitive balance.

I hope we are able to keep most (all?) of the scouting staff.

The gap in analytics has definitely narrowed from 20+ years ago when the A's were the only team "moneyballing".

It sure feels inevitable that the "new moneyball" is just going to be good old fashioned money, but at the same the #1 (NYM), #2 (NYY), #3 (SDP), and #6 (LAA) teams by Opening Day payroll are already out of the chase.

#7 (TOR), #9 (TEX), #10 (SFG) and #11 (CHC) are only gonna have a couple postseason reps.

#12 (BOS), #13 (CHW) and #14 (STL) all flopped relative to spending/market size/history. 

Meanwhile teams like BAL (#29), TBR (#28), CIN (#26), MIA (#23), ARI (#21), MKE (#20), SEA (#18) and MIN (#17) remain in the hunt to varying extents with bottom half payrolls lagging in most cases $100M+ behind the offseason champions.

[Axman59]

17 hours ago, markedman5 said:

He did……and he did in 2023…….he never said he would never take another job.

He wanted a break before he moved on…….nothing wrong with that.

 

He wanted to move to the Mets but MA wouldn't let him go while still under contract. So they put him in a time out for a year.

[Playing Catch]

1 hour ago, sveumrules said:

It sure feels inevitable that the "new moneyball" is just going to be good old fashioned money, but at the same the #1 (NYM), #2 (NYY), #3 (SDP), and #6 (LAA) teams by Opening Day payroll are already out of the chase.

That's my point.

Those big-spending teams you just listed are NOT analytically driven... yet. Those teams are still,  "sign 30 year-old stars," driven, regardless of how you support the team through scouting/analytics/pitching lab/defense/etc.

Atlanta, after extending all of their young guys, chose to NOT re-sign a 33-year-old Freddie Freeman (happy birthday, BTW), choosing instead to extend a then, 28-year-old Matt Olson. We all know that the Dodgers like to re-make/recycle relievers to make them something special with what I would assume is their OWN pitching lab.

What happens to baseball when all of the big spenders choose not to pay 30+ year old FAs and choose instead to use analytics to drive their winning operations?

The fun part is that the MLBPA will riot... Both sides will, (fingers crossed), decide that revenue-sharing and competitive balance is better than what college football is choosing to do... kill the golden goose.

[BrewerFan]

14 hours ago, Axman59 said:

He wanted to move to the Mets but MA wouldn't let him go while still under contract. So they put him in a time out for a year.

So what? Lets say this is true. What difference does it make? Are doing the "he said he was stepping back because he wanted to spend time with family and now he's taking another job and so he was lying?"

The "spend time with family," is the most vague and irrelevant statement Coaches or GMs make when they step away. Even athletes at times.

Who cares what the mechanism was for him to spend it with his family, a forced year off or a year he chose to take off?

And he DID choose to take it off. He could have gotten paid 5.5 MILLION(not insignificant) to be an advisor for the Brewers this year and he turned it down.

 

So fine. Attanasio just didn't let him. He has a principled view on giving young executives their first opportunity and then not allow them to leave their contracts early when a big market comes along. He also pays them commensurate with other very highly paid executives. 

I don't get how this furthers any conversation though. 

[brewers888]

2 hours ago, Playing Catch said:

I realize that big-markets have gone all analytical before (Astros), but I do fear that the days of the Rays (and Brewers) being competitive by these means are numbered. Baseball really needs to figure out if they want to be the NFL, European (and Saudi) soccer, or a pleasant mesh in-between in terms of competitive balance.

I hope we are able to keep most (all?) of the scouting staff.

This is what concerns me. The big market teams can pay big money to steal the top scouts and executives of teams like the Brewrs and Rays. Its bad enough that we get outspent by huge margins on the major league payroll but it could easily get to the point where the big teams have far better and deeper front offices than teams like ours and competing will get to be nearly impossible.

[brewers888]

14 hours ago, Axman59 said:

He wanted to move to the Mets but MA wouldn't let him go while still under contract. So they put him in a time out for a year.

Anyone that thinks that Stearns was doing anything other than waiting for the first chance to jump ship to the Mets is fooling themselves. The only reason why Stearns wasn't employed by the Mets the last several years was Attanasio holding him to his contract.

[BrewerFan]

3 hours ago, brewers888 said:

This is what concerns me. The big market teams can pay big money to steal the top scouts and executives of teams like the Brewrs and Rays. Its bad enough that we get outspent by huge margins on the major league payroll but it could easily get to the point where the big teams have far better and deeper front offices than teams like ours and competing will get to be nearly impossible.

Yeah...again, they can still only take the ONE executive. They can't just throw endless piles of cash at the Brewers executives and take them all. There are rules, this has been explained to you. 

[dlk9s]

4 hours ago, brewers888 said:

Anyone that thinks that Stearns was doing anything other than waiting for the first chance to jump ship to the Mets is fooling themselves.

I guess I don't know why it matters one way or the other. I really don't care in the slightest.

[Jopal78]

14 hours ago, sveumrules said:

The gap in analytics has definitely narrowed from 20+ years ago when the A's were the only team "moneyballing".

It sure feels inevitable that the "new moneyball" is just going to be good old fashioned money, but at the same the #1 (NYM), #2 (NYY), #3 (SDP), and #6 (LAA) teams by Opening Day payroll are already out of the chase.

#7 (TOR), #9 (TEX), #10 (SFG) and #11 (CHC) are only gonna have a couple postseason reps.

#12 (BOS), #13 (CHW) and #14 (STL) all flopped relative to spending/market size/history. 

Meanwhile teams like BAL (#29), TBR (#28), CIN (#26), MIA (#23), ARI (#21), MKE (#20), SEA (#18) and MIN (#17) remain in the hunt to varying extents with bottom half payrolls lagging in most cases $100M+ behind the offseason champions.

True, but Baltimore, Arizona, Cincinnati Minnesota and Seattle all wracked up multiple seasons of 90 losses over the last decade or so, and are now laden with young premium players from drafting near top of the first round. It has nothing to do with market size.

[sveumrules]

1 hour ago, Jopal78 said:

True, but Baltimore, Arizona, Cincinnati Minnesota and Seattle all wracked up multiple seasons of 90 losses over the last decade or so, and are now laden with young premium players from drafting near top of the first round. It has nothing to do with market size.

The biggest markets there are ARI (#11), SEA (#12), MIN (#15). Though with two teams each in NY, LA and CHI that pushes the raw ratings down a few spots.

BAL (#28) and CIN (#36) are the 5th and 2nd smallest markets in MLB per Sports Media Watch.

BAL and CIN have stockpiled young talent by being been among the worst teams In the last decade, yes, but SEA lost 90 games once (2019), MIN hasn’t lost 90 games since 2016, ARI flopped in 2021 (110 losses) but before that hadn’t lost 90 since 2016. Their performances have been more middling, like their market sizes.

[jerichoholicninja]

The Red Sox front office is led by Rays guys. The Yankees have gone way analytical over the last few years and neither of these organizations have anything to show for it. They aren't even flexing their financial muscle and overpaying for washed up free agents like they used to. I'm not too concerned about any money advantage teams have.

[MrTPlush]

Honestly, who cares. If he was so great, the Mets wouldn't have waited years to get him. If he was so great, he probably would have figured out how to take a team that won 95+ and was one game away from the World Series to the second level of the playoffs again. Yet, here we are half a decade later...happy to win a single postseason game before getting bounced. He has failed for years to make an offense not be so embarrassing, yet here we are...still sucking. Never used prospect capital to really add much and sucked at spending money in FA.

A winning culture he may have built and a consistent competitive team. That culture can survive way past him if you know what you are doing. It is probably a good thing he is gone and passing on the torch. His value to the franchise clearly maxed out and plateaued. Not saying he is bad or didn't dramatically changed Brewers baseball...but Stearns isn't a magically holy grail. He is quite replacable. 

[owbc]

6 hours ago, sveumrules said:

The biggest markets there are ARI (#11), SEA (#12), MIN (#15). Though with two teams each in NY, LA and CHI that pushes the raw ratings down a few spots.

BAL (#28) and CIN (#36) are the 5th and 2nd smallest markets in MLB per Sports Media Watch.

BAL and CIN have stockpiled young talent by being been among the worst teams In the last decade, yes, but SEA lost 90 games once (2019), MIN hasn’t lost 90 games since 2016, ARI flopped in 2021 (110 losses) but before that hadn’t lost 90 since 2016. Their performances have been more middling, like their market sizes.

I think the takeaway here is that these teams have used a variety of strategies. Baltimore was the only true "tanking" franchise. Cincinnati and Seattle largely got better through trades, not drafting. Minnesota has mostly coasted through an easy division given their failure to win a playoff game during that stretch. And personally I think Arizona lacks a strong enough roster to maintain their current success and they are far from a lock for the playoffs. 

I think the owner is the most important piece. That's the one constant that you have. That's the person who sets the culture more than anyone else. Stearns is going to have to navigate an inexperienced owner who desperately wants to win. It's not going to be easy. He also has to build things from scratch again. He's competent for sure, but there's a lot of luck involved in this world and New York is not Milwaukee. Mets fans will not tolerate a couple of years of losing to build things up like the Brewers did in 2016-17. And even that 2018 Brewers teams was ahead of schedule. 

 

 

[BrewerFan]

2 hours ago, MrTPlush said:

Honestly, who cares. If he was so great, the Mets wouldn't have waited years to get him. If he was so great, he probably would have figured out how to take a team that won 95+ and was one game away from the World Series to the second level of the playoffs again. Yet, here we are half a decade later...happy to win a single postseason game before getting bounced. He has failed for years to make an offense not be so embarrassing, yet here we are...still sucking. Never used prospect capital to really add much and sucked at spending money in FA.

A winning culture he may have built and a consistent competitive team. That culture can survive way past him if you know what you are doing. It is probably a good thing he is gone and passing on the torch. His value to the franchise clearly maxed out and plateaued. Not saying he is bad or didn't dramatically changed Brewers baseball...but Stearns isn't a magically holy grail. He is quite replacable. 

I think you're WILDLY understating what he did for the the Brewers and how he rebuilt this entire organizations philosophy. From Latin America to developing pitching to even being aggressive.

The "unspent prospect capital." Who? My biggest problem with any specific move he made was trading Reece Olson for Norris, but lets not act like we had this just elite farm system that we could have used to go get star players until THIS YEAR. And those players were the result of Stearns and the scouting and development programs that started under his watch. So guys like Ashby, Wiemer, Turang, Mitchell, I guess Frelick the last 2 years.

 

Is he replaceable? Yeah, sure, because the infrastructure is still there and the philosophy. But blaming him for not being able to take the '19 Brewers team and take another step, do we forget what happened? Our all world MVP Christian Yelich got hurt and Corbin Burnes had one of the worst years by a starting pitcher, in a long time and we STILL made a Sept push. 

That team that we played, they also saw their MVP fall off a cliff and had pitchers just collapse or have unexpected incidents come up in Bellinger, Bauer and plenty of others. They also spent another 160M dollars and were able to go out and get a guy like Betts and trade for Trea Turner and Max Scherzer and whoever the hell else they want.

 

I'm not crying over the loss of Stearns, but again, it's because we have Arnold and a whlole system in place. He's set us up for future success and Arnold has proven he's capable of taking over. I'm a little worried that he could poach personnel that's important, but everyone's poached the Rays and they're still consistently churning out elite prospects and competitive teams, so there's no reason the Brewers can't. 

[MrTPlush]

17 hours ago, BrewerFan said:

I think you're WILDLY understating what he did for the the Brewers and how he rebuilt this entire organizations philosophy. From Latin America to developing pitching to even being aggressive.

 

No, because I literally acknowledged that in my post.

My point is, losing Stearns isn't really that much of a loss for future purposes. You can keep a guy's philosophy and the foundation they built long after they are gone. This is not college football, losing the main guy (head coach in college football terms), doesn't result in an exodus of the current guys and then no one wants to come in because they are gone. Most of the personnel outside of Stearns (if not all) will stick around. 

 

 

[BrewerFan]

33 minutes ago, MrTPlush said:

No, because I literally acknowledged that in my post.

My point is, losing Stearns isn't really that much of a loss for future purposes. You can keep a guy's philosophy and the foundation they built long after they are gone. This is not college football, losing the main guy (head coach in college football terms), doesn't result in an exodus of the current guys and then no one wants to come in because they are gone. Most of the personnel outside of Stearns (if not all) will stick around. 

 

 

Ok, I did acknowledge that. I said we could manage his loss(and have) because of the infrastructure he's put in place. That wasn't what I took issue with. 

This was;

17 hours ago, BrewerFan said:

If he was so great, the Mets wouldn't have waited years to get him. If he was so great, he probably would have figured out how to take a team that won 95+ and was one game away from the World Series to the second level of the playoffs again. Yet, here we are half a decade later...happy to win a single postseason game before getting bounced. He has failed for years to make an offense not be so embarrassing, yet here we are...still sucking. Never used prospect capital to really add much and sucked at spending money in FA.

None of these make sense to me.

The Mets have asked THREE times for permission to interview him over the course of multiple owners. So they waited until the first time he was literally allowed to interview. And the Mets weren't the only team interested, the Astros, the defending WS Champs and winners of 2 of the last...what, 5, they also wanted him. Does that mean he's "so great?" I think it means his reputation is pretty impressive.

 

The "he would have taken a team that was 1 game away from the WS," it assumes this linear progression in Baseball that...you rarely see in sports, but if you do, it's usually Basketball or maybe the 90s Packers as an example. Where they take that first step, then another, then finally get to the top. There's way too much variance in Baseball and then I already addressed the COMPLETELY unforeseeable decline in performance/injuries from players.

 

The prospect capital? He went out and traded 3 top 100 prospects to get an MVP and we had a lowly rated farm system. I had another paragraph and...I don't want to repeat what I already wrote(though Grandal, Moose, Shaw, Yelich, Cain, Aguilar, Choi, Adames, Renfroe, Navarez). You're just making these blanket statements that frankly, do not make any sense. 

Sogard and the other barging bin FAs who I can't recall off the top of my head, their failures doesn't exactly constitute a "bad at spending in FA." It's just the reality of a small market team with a limited budget.

 

21 hours ago, MrTPlush said:

A winning culture he may have built and a consistent competitive team. That culture can survive way past him if you know what you are doing. It is probably a good thing he is gone and passing on the torch. His value to the franchise clearly maxed out and plateaued.

Now this is where you lose me again. Right before this you talk about the culture of winning, but how did we "plateau" with him, it's even a good thing he's gone. We'd plateaued with him. I don't see how we maxed out with Stearns. Changing the direction of a franchise is like turning the Titanic. It takes a long time to do it and we're just starting to see the fruits of such a course correction with all these high contact, OBP, plus athlete, plus defenders he started targeting. Those are JUST making their way really starting at the end of last year with Mitchell and we've still only gotten a fraction of that talent up.

And of course that's ignoring everything he's done on the pitching side.

Also, he was out in front of the shift and the impact that would have on the game. The requirement for better infield defense, speed, how much more value just athletic players would have(we've certainly got those types coming up en masse. 

[markedman5]