Fifteen years ago, a 23-year-old Mets fan showed up for his first day as an intern with his hometown team. He was a year out of Harvard and already had two summers’ worth of experience in the Pirates’ baseball operations department, plus a stint as the assistant director of baseball operations for the Arizona Fall League. He so impressed his bosses, among them general manager Omar Minaya, that they stumped for the team to make his role permanent. They believed he had the potential to become one of the best young executives in the game. But owners Fred and Jeff Wilpon reportedly did not want to pay for the additional full-time position.
So David Stearns became one of the best young executives in the game—for other teams. He moved on to become a manager of labor relations at the commissioner’s office, a director of baseball operations with the Guardians, the assistant general manager of the Astros and the general manager and then president of baseball operations of the Brewers. Last October, with a year left on his contract, he announced he would step down and serve as a consultant to his successor, Matt Arnold.
And finally, after two years of courting by New York’s new owner, Steve Cohen, Stearns reportedly agreed to terms on Tuesday with the Mets to return as their president of baseball operations. The move is a dream one for Mets fans—among them Stearns’s mother, who still lives in New York. The Mets got their man. Now he has to be the man they expect him to be.
