How Stearns Has Shaped the Mets’ Relationship With the Media

Before the Mets signed Jorge Polanco, the only reporter to link the two was The Athletic’s Will Sammon the night before he signed.

There were no reports about the Mets meeting with Bo Bichette at the GM Meetings back in November or the Zoom call he held with the mets the week before he signed with the team.

Reliever Luke Weaver was linked to other teams, including the Cubs and Orioles, by outlets like The Athletic and MLB Trade Rumors as opposed to the Mets. As for the available free agents, we have not heard much outside of rumors that the Mets had a meeting with Framber Valdez and that they could be a fit for Cody Bellinger.

This is a Mets organization that is much more tight-lipped with their plans compared to past Mets organizations, and their leaks tend to be more intentional than not.

Mets Media Relationship Over the Years

The Mets’ history with the media and the way they leak information has evolved over the years.

One of the most memorable leaks came on July 29, 2015, when it leaked that the Mets were trading fan favorite Wilmer Flores for Carlos Gómez. This trade did not end up going through in the end, but fans in the stadium were aware of the potential move before even the manager or players on the field were.

Many people remember the media boycott in 1992 led by closer John Franco and starting pitcher David Cone, as well as outfielder Bobby Bonilla, second baseman Willie Randolph, and first baseman Eddie Murray. The players felt they were taking back their privacy, while the New York and national media utilized it to cement a negative image of the clubhouse that wasn’t helped by the disastrous 1992 season. This left the Mets media relations director, Jay Horowitz, with a tough task of rebuilding that fractured relationship.

Through the Wilpons’ tenure, the New York media had pretty open access to the Mets front office and team. New York Post reporter Joel Sherman regularly interviewed Jeff Wilpon and could easily get the inside scoop on anything he wanted, including the details of the Victor Zambrano trade and Jeff Wilpon forcing an injured Pedro Martinez to pitch in a meaningless game at the end of 2005.

The Mets were an open book, and everything was public. Attempted trades and signings, front office politics, and clubhouse issues regularly flooded the New York headlines. From the Bobby Bonilla and Rickey Henderson card game during the NLCS loss, to the chaotic, middle-of-the-night firing of Willie Randolph, to Tony Bernazard taking off his shirt and threatening to fight a minor league player during a meeting. If something in Mets world happened, everyone knew about it.

David Stearns’ Relationship with the Media

David Stearns, through his career, has worked to be honest and transparent with the media while separating what should be external-facing dialogue rather than kept internally.

“There are different levels,” Stearns said in an interview in 2017 with OnMilwaukee. “I think what we can always do is be honest. That’s something that from the moment we started this process, we said we’re going to be honest. Now that doesn’t mean I can always share the trade discussions we’re working on or our internal evaluations of particular players, but I can be honest that we’re not going to share those.”

“I can be honest about our overarching goals and our long-term plan. To the extent that I can do that, I think our fan base appreciates that. I think our community appreciates that, and it gives them a greater understanding of what we’re doing.”

Another hallmark of Stearns has been his accountability. He has followed the mantra of “the buck stops with me.” In both his 2022 and 2025 press conferences after his teams failed to make the postseason, he discussed how he is accountable for the performance of the organization. You aren’t going to see headline-making press conferences from Stearns as we did with Omar Minaya in 2009, but he will be clear about the main focuses and goals of the organization, like his September press conference discussing run prevention.

When Do the Stearns Mets Leak?

Every front office has leaks. Even the Mets under Stearns have had leaks they may not have wanted out there, including the recent clubhouse drama, but even this was met with careful responses from the Mets.

The leaks we have seen over the last two years overall have seemed to be more strategic than in years past. Instead of Jeff Wilpon airing out the internal drama of each potential move the organization could make, David Stearns refuses to discuss contract and trade negotiations. When we do get information, it usually is limited and straightforward. An example of this was Will Sammon’s comment on how the Mets were interested in a Pete Alonso reunion, but not at the level he signed at.

Another example of how the Mets have tried to use leaks to their advantage came with closer Edwin Díaz. Immediately after signing reliever Devin Williams, reporters, including Will Sammon, Anthony DiComo, and Andy Martino, quickly reported that the Mets were still interested in bringing back Díaz. Instead, the former Mets’ closer chose the Dodgers without giving the Mets an opportunity to match, but the immediacy of the identical reports seems to have been a planned strategy by the organization.

What Does This All Mean?

Two years into the Stearns Mets era, it would seem that the days of the Mets regularly making the headlines from internal leaks could be coming to an end, or at least will be a less frequent occurrence. Free agent signings and trades like the Polanco, Bichette and Weaver signings as well as the Tyler Rogers and Ryan Helsley trades, where the Mets were not heavily linked before the move, may become more of the norm.

For fans who want to know everything that happens inside their favorite MLB organization, this could be frustrating. We have already seen countless differing discussions of what the Mets’ current plan is, with the consensus being that we just don’t fully know. But it does seem that the Mets have become much more of an organization built around the mentality of balancing what should stay internal and what will be shared externally.

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