With Brandon Nimmo Gone, What’s Next As David Stearns Renovates The Mets?

Like any renovation, the task of fixing the Mets began by making a mess even messier.

The Mets today are not appreciably better than the Mets of Sunday, when Brandon Nimmo was still on pace to become the final player in team history to wear no. 9 and Marcus Semien was still with the Rangers.

Now they’ve swapped places in a trade that was officially announced Monday — and, as a pure baseball transaction, makes little sense from either side.

Semien won his second Gold Glove at second base last season and will help fortify the Mets’ defense (sorry, “run prevention”), but he posted a career-low .669 OPS and turned 35 in September as he recovered from a Lisfranc injury — his first serious injury since he missed almost half a season with a right wrist ailment in 2017.

Nimmo, who turns 33 in March, played in at least 150 games for the fourth straight season and collected a career-high 92 RBIs while recording a .760 OPS (up from .727 in 2024) but appeared to decline dramatically in left field. If you’re a certain age, you don’t have to squint very hard to see this as an updating/retooling/rebooting of the Kevin Appier for Mo Vaughn trade following the 2001 season.

The Rangers are also reportedly looking to pare payroll, but Semien is owed $78 million through 2028 while Nimmo will make $102.5 million through 2030. The Mets did send $5 million to Texas as part of the trade.

Of course this is just the start of things for the Rangers and the Mets, so it’s way too early to pass judgement on the offseason.

“I don’t know what the next transaction is right now, but I know we’re going to keep going in the offseason,” David Stearns said Monday afternoon. “I’m very confident we’re going to have a very productive offseason.”

From the Mets’ perspective, if you’re going to renovate, you’ve got to knock down some pillars. And there were few sturdier Mets pillars than Nimmo, the longest-tenured player within the organization and a top-15 player all-time per Baseball-Reference WAR.

But even accounting for how obviously the Mets’ core needed tinkering following last summer’s slow-motion collapse, the toppling of Nimmo means it’s time to survey the wreckage and wonder if the finished product is going to be an improvement on what stood there previously, flaws and all.

“What we did last year wasn’t good enough and running back the exact same group wasn’t the right thing to do,” Stearns said. “And so as we went into this, we believed — and still believe — that we have to be open to anything, that we shouldn’t be in a spot to take anything off the table.”

More than two years into Stearns’ stewardship and after a series of underwhelming cosmetic repairs, it’s less obvious if he’s the one who can pull this off.

The 59 Stearns acquisitions to play for the Mets over the last two seasons have combined for 18.7 in WAR, per Baseball-Reference. More than one-third of that WAR was produced last season by Juan Soto, who can charitably be described as a Steve Cohen pick.

To borrow a phrase from predecessor Sandy Alderson, the optics haven’t been great for Stearns throughout the first several weeks of the Mets’ off-season. Stearns got off to a decent start Sept. 29, when he said all the right things about being accountable for the Mets’ collapse.

But then he oversaw a nearly complete reconstruction of the Mets’ coaching staff that included the firing of pitching coach Jeremy Hefner, who survived four managers and a whopping six general manager types while helping to construct the Mets’ mysterious pitching lab in Port St. Lucie.

Hefner’s exit served as a reminder seven starters acquired by Stearns — Clay Holmes, Griffin Canning, Sean Manaea, Paul Blackburn, Brandon Waddell, Justin Hagenman and Frankie Montas, the latter of whom Stearns chose over the New York-proven Luis Severino — combined to average barely five innings per outing over 66 starts last season. That’s probably not Hefner’s fault.

The Mets also didn’t come to terms on a new contract for first base/baserunning coach Antoan Richardson, who was continually praised by Soto after his work with Soto turned him into a 30/30 player who shared the NL lead in stolen bases. Figuring out a way to keep one of Soto’s favorite people after year one of his 15-year deal should have been the easiest move the Mets made all winter, especially since Soto gave off a Mike Piazza-esque low-maintenance vibe during his debut season in Queens.

The optics grew much worse when the Braves, who know a thing or two about constructing consistent winners, signed Hefner and Richardson. And you REALLY don’t have to squint hard to see scenarios in which the Braves victimize the Mets for their first no-hitter in more than 30 years and/or steal a whole bunch of bases in a whole bunch of wins against the Mets.

The optics remain mixed this week. With Francisco Lindor due to make another $204.6 million through 2031, shedding Nimmo’s contract was the most realistic budget-easing move they had. This trade should allow the Mets to improve their defense at two positions next year. Semien is two seasons removed from helping the Rangers win the World Series, well-regarded throughout baseball and struck all the right notes during his introductory Zoom Tuesday afternoon.

Still, there’s risk in swapping out a relatively sure thing for a promising yet unproven newcomer to the biggest market in America, And even if Semien seamlessly transitions to New York on and off the field, there’s a chance Nimmo won’t be the only pillar Stearns knocks down during this reconstruction.

“Ultimately, if we’re able to put transactions together that we think make sense for the team, both now and in the future, that we have to consider them regardless of what names may be involved,” Stearns said.

Edwin Diaz and Pete Alonso, of course, remain free agents, and Diaz’s return seems as uncertain as Alonso’s. Diaz, who re-signed with the Mets before he hit free agency following the 2022 season, said earlier this month his chances of coming back to the Mets are “50/50.” The Mets and Diaz are reportedly apart on the length of his next contract.

“As I’ve said before, we’d love to have Pete and Edwin back — they’re both great Mets,” Stearns said.

Nimmo was also a great Met, but his production is far more replaceable than that of Diaz and/or Alonso. Ask the 2025 Yankees what can happen when you whiff on a closer who isn’t ready for New York…or the 2019 Mets, who missed the playoffs by three games as Diaz posted a 5.59 ERA in his first season with the club and took the loss in four of his seven blown save opportunities.

Alonso, meanwhile, ranks third in the bigs with 264 homers since 2019 — behind only Aaron Judge and Kyle Schwarber — while leading the majors with 712 RBIs and 1,008 games played. (Semien held the lead at 986 games before suffering his season-ending injury)

Jettisoning Nimmo means the Mets might be in on Kyle Tucker and/or Cody Bellinger, but as well-earned as their nine-figure deals will be, they’ve “only” combined for 304 homers and 1,008 RBIs over the last seven seasons. And Bellinger’s 863 games played are 122 more than Tucker, who has been sidelined by lower body injuries each of the last two seasons.

“We’ve got a lot of offseason left,” Stearns said.

At this stage of Stearns’ Mets renovation, that sounds as foreboding as it does promising.