Living the Dream Job: What It's Like to Run Your Childhood Team, with David Stearns

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: Pablo Torre Finds Out
Host: Pablo Torre (Le Batard & Friends)
Episode: Living the Dream Job: What It's Like to Run Your Childhood Team, with David Stearns
Date: February 11, 2025

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Overview

In this episode, Pablo Torre sits down with David Stearns, the President of Baseball Operations for the New York Mets—and longtime friend—to explore what it’s actually like to run your childhood team. Their candid and often nostalgic conversation runs through college memories, the origins of Stearns’ baseball career, behind-the-scenes front office decision-making, and the unique psychology of being a Mets executive (and fan) in New York. The pair discuss the burdens and joys of high expectations, the mechanics of baseball leadership, public pressure, and the emotional ride of the Mets’ dramatic recent season—culminating in landing superstar Juan Soto.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. A Friendship Rooted in Sports & Journalism

• Pablo and David’s Harvard Days:
  • Reminiscing about the launch of Facebook during their freshman year (00:34).
  • Shared experiences as writers for the college paper, The Harvard Crimson; recalling a notorious column David wrote critiquing the men’s hockey team and the aftermath (04:22–05:49).
  • “I wrote a column talking about the lackluster play of the men’s hockey team… I don’t think they appreciated that.” – David Stearns (04:47).

2. Childhood & the Dream Job

• David’s Mets Fandom:
  • Grew up a passionate Mets supporter, dreaming of a career in baseball management—not imagining he’d ever actually run the Mets (07:10).
  • “The thought that I could one day be running the team I grew up passionately rooting for would have seemed absurd to me. Nuts. Crazy.” – David Stearns (07:10).
• Mets Fan Psychology:
  • Explanation of the perennial underdog, “little brother” mentality compared to the Yankees (08:48–10:17).

3. Favorite and Saddest Mets Moments

• Most Painful Fan Memory:
  • Discussing the crushing loss in the 1999 NLCS—Kenny Rogers’ walk-off walk.
  • “That may have been the roughest moment of my Met fandom.” – David Stearns (12:06).

4. Early Baseball Career & Climbing the Ranks

• Minor League Beginnings:
  • Interned with Brooklyn Cyclones; hands-on work, including power-washing bathrooms, pulling tarp, and running in mascot races (13:38–15:19).
  • “You are doing everything and anything… Power washing bathrooms after the game, pulling tarp…” – David Stearns (13:44).
• Persistence & Breaking In:
  • Sent “hundreds” of letters to MLB teams after college before landing an internship.
  • Built his network gradually, leading to a full-time position at the MLB commissioner’s office (16:24–17:23).
  • “My career was not linear. It took me four internships to finally get a full-time job.” – David Stearns (15:46).

5. Front Office Philosophy & the Evolution of Analytics

• The “Moneyball” Era:
  • Read the book in high school; inspired by Theo Epstein’s unconventional GM path.
  • Not overtly stats-oriented; describes niche as being skilled at managing complex information and understanding baseball economics from multiple angles (19:04–19:37).
• Decision-Making Maturity:
  • Learned from a diverse slate of mentors—each with different approaches—leading to a flexible, balanced decision style.
  • Emphasizes being “even-keeled” and making unemotional, objective decisions (25:20–26:34).
  • “Making unemotional decisions is helpful… Once you get to the decision making process, being as factual, objective, and unemotional leads to better decisions.” – David Stearns (25:57).

6. Leadership at the Brewers and Building a Winner

• Strategic Risks in Milwaukee:
  • Balanced owner’s aversion to long rebuilds with need for aggressive moves (e.g., Christian Yelich trade), guiding the Brewers to multiple playoff berths (23:03–25:10).

7. Mets Tenure and the ‘Cohen Era’

• Steve Cohen’s Ownership:
  • Describes Cohen’s and his wife’s lifelong Mets fandom and their civic vision for the team (27:49–28:14).
• Getting the Call:
  • Stearns signs his contract with the Mets in a quiet, solitary moment in his attic office, emblematic of his understated temperament (28:34–29:36).
  • “I was just sitting up there. By myself. And I was like, all right, here it is. And so I just… I clicked it.” – David Stearns (29:32).

8. The New York Spotlight & Staying Grounded

• Living with Pressure:
  • Despite the glare of New York media, Stearns finds comparative anonymity in NYC off the field and consciously avoids sports talk radio and social media to focus on his job (30:28–32:44).
  • “I just ignore it… I am not on social media. I do not listen to talk radio. I am grateful that talk radio exists in this town because it provokes the passion of our fan base.” – David Stearns (32:08).
• Grimace Mania:
  • Pablo recounts the viral “Grimace” first pitch and the Mets’ subsequent win streak—David, entirely offline, is oblivious to the meme until it’s explained to him (33:32–34:23).
  • “Had no idea who Grimace was.” – David Stearns (33:51).

9. 2024 Mets Rollercoaster & Civic Joy

• Turning the Season Around:
  • After “Grimace Night,” the Mets become the best team in baseball; Citi Field transforms into the city’s best sports show (36:23–39:28).
  • “For a period, we were the best sports experience in America.” – David Stearns (36:54).
• Celebrations & Staying Cool:
  • Even as the team and the city celebrate, Stearns maintains his signature calm, standing on the periphery (“your hands are in your pockets”) during clubhouse champagne celebrations (39:36–40:04).

10. Off-Field Surrealism & Legacy

• Connecting with Mets Legends:
  • Personal highlights include breakfast with Darryl Strawberry (“he signs texts with a strawberry emoji”) and building relationships with iconic Mets of past generations (40:55–42:17).
  • “That, for me, is really cool… That group of humans thinks what we’re doing is really cool.” – David Stearns (42:17).

11. The Juan Soto Coup & Baseball Economics

• Landing a Superstar:
  • Details the rationale behind signing Juan Soto to the richest contract in sports ($765M/15 years), emphasizing Soto’s youth and historic productivity (43:13–44:32).
  • “We knew this was going to break all sorts of records… You had one shot at this type of investment, and we put our best foot forward and fortunately, we got it.” – David Stearns (44:32).
• Balancing Small-Market Smarts with Big-Market Muscle:
  • Explains the advantages of each; stresses the importance of flexibility and wise spending, even with financial might (“Money is an advantage in this game… but only if you spend it wisely…”) (46:06–47:26).

12. Fan Versus Executive

• Balancing Identity:
  • Acknowledges that his “16-year-old Met fan” self might criticize him, but stresses the need to separate personal fandom from professional responsibility (47:51–48:38).
  • “The younger version of me probably thinks I’m doing a shitty job. So I can’t blame a fan when they think I should be doing better.” – David Stearns (47:58).

13. Signature Calm, On and Off the Field

• Reflection:
  • Stearns reaffirms his even-keeled nature, saving emotional investment for being a Knicks fan—his “other psychosis” (48:50–49:27).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Kenny Rogers’ walk-off walk:
“That may have been the roughest moment of my Met fandom… There’s no way the Mets make the playoffs without Kenny Rogers down the stretch there, and then that is unfortunately his Met’s legacy.” – David Stearns (12:06)

On breaking into baseball:
“My career was not linear. It took me four internships to finally get a full-time job.” – David Stearns (15:46)

On balancing emotion in decision-making:
“Making unemotional decisions is helpful… Once you get to the decision making process, being as factual, objective, and unemotional leads to better decisions.” – David Stearns (25:57)

On living the dream, but staying measured:
“I was just sitting up there. By myself. And I was like, all right, here it is. And so I just… I clicked it.” – David Stearns (29:32)
“It feels like you’ve become acquainted with spending as it might relate to those next seven to ten years. Like, this is the time to make the biggest signing in sports history.” – Pablo Torre (44:44)

On civic pride and legacy:
“David Wright and Darryl Strawberry and Keith Hernandez and John Franco… they’re proud to be associated with what we’re doing— that, for me, is really cool.” – David Stearns (42:17)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [00:34] – Reminiscing on Harvard days and college journalism
• [04:22–05:49] – The infamous men’s hockey column
• [07:10] – Stearns on the unlikelihood of running the Mets
• [12:06] – Kenny Rogers, 1999 NLCS heartbreak
• [13:38–16:24] – Minor league grind; sending “hundreds” of letters for internships
• [19:04–19:37] – Analytics and managing information over being a “pure stats” guy
• [25:20–26:34] – On making objective, calm decisions as an executive
• [28:34–29:36] – Signing the Mets contract in an attic office
• [32:02–32:44] – Avoiding media/fan noise; focusing on the job
• [33:32–34:23] – The “Grimace” viral streak and Stearns’ obliviousness
• [36:23–39:28] – 2024 Mets resurgence, Citi Field atmosphere
• [43:13–44:32] – Juan Soto’s record-shattering contract
• [47:51–48:38] – Weighing the fan vs. executive inside him
• [48:50–49:27] – Stearns on his even keel, except as a Knicks fan

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Tone and Style

Warm, dryly humorous, and introspective—a blend of Pablo’s playful curiosity and David’s understated candor. Stearns repeatedly comes off as calm, methodical, and unflappable, while Pablo takes a more animated, self-deprecating “fan/journalist” role, drawing out both the human and operational insights of leadership in high-stakes sports.

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Conclusion

The episode delivers a rare window into running a major sports franchise—rooted in both personal history and professional acumen. Listeners come away understanding both the romance and reality of following a dream in sports, the persistence it takes to get there, and the constant balancing act between the business, the fans, and the human drama at the heart of the game.

Transcript

[Pablo Torre]

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're gonna find out what this sound is.

[Met Fan Caller]

I think that the Met fans need to calm down because they will get.

[Pablo Torre]

It done right after this ad. You're listening to drafting. You know, it's funny, I was thinking, like, so we were. We were freshmen when Facebook.

[David Stearns]

Yep.

[Pablo Torre]

When the Facebook.com launched. Do you remember, like.

[David Stearns]

Oh, yeah. I thought it was gonna, like, die in two weeks. I actually. I remember sitting in Annenberg, our freshman.

[Pablo Torre]

Dining hall, which is the closest thing to, like, Hogwarts that actually exists.

[David Stearns]

Yes. So I remember sitting there and reading an article in the Crimson.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah.

[David Stearns]

And I forget what the exact dollar amount was, but some VC had offered Mark a couple million bucks. This was our freshman year. And I remember thinking, like. And he turned it down. I remember thinking, like, what's he doing? And obviously, obviously, he knew what he was doing. So. Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Good scouting by you.

[David Stearns]

Yes. Yeah, exactly. I probably good that I went into this career and not another one.

[Pablo Torre]

But I think all the time about how if you were to become one day, just hypothetically speaking, the president of baseball operations for your childhood favorite team, it would help to not have smartphones around in college. Like, we just missed, like, the iPhone era. Dawn of social media. But, like, no actual, like, smartphones around.

[David Stearns]

That's true. Yeah, I guess that's right. Some kids had blackberries, right?

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. I had a Motorola Razor at one point. Which is all my way of saying that last night, because I am an investigative journalist.

[David Stearns]

Okay.

[Pablo Torre]

My wife yells at me for being a hoarder. And so I found an old laptop that I forgot I had, and I found a picture that I want to show you.

[David Stearns]

Oh, boy. What's this from?

[Pablo Torre]

You tell me if you remember what this is. So the guy I'm showing my laptop to, the guy I've tricked into visiting our studio here today, as America turns to pitchers and catchers, is David Sterntz, a guy who is now, at age 39, the president of baseball operations for the historically despondent team that David grew up rooting for, which now happens to be one of the most fascinating teams in all of sports, the New York Mets. David recently signed outfielder Juan Soto away from the Yankees, my childhood team, by signing Soto to the richest contract in the history of sports, a 15 year, $765 million deal. A truly surreal dynamic that we'll discuss. But I first encountered David stearns more than 20 years ago now, when we were freshmen covering sports for the college paper, which this picture that I'm Showing him here, which you can see on our YouTube channel, can confirm.

[David Stearns]

So that is in the Crimson Sports Cube. And it looks like after a night where we've enjoyed ourselves. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

I mean, I found this photo to try and embarrass you and mostly just realize that I look like I have. I think I may have literally not had alcohol before until this evening.

[David Stearns]

Yeah, you look like you're struggling there a little bit.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. In the picture, I am hanging onto the table, the edge of a table for dear life as my eyes are fluttering into unconsciousness. David, on the other hand, is mostly just calmly grinning. He looks even keeled. And we are wearing blazers and medals, by the way, and not at all looking like. Not at all because of that. But that night we were getting initiated as official staffers on the college paper. And while David now here in New York City is the subject of intense coverage, the columns he wrote as a hard hitting journalist, they remain a part of Crimson lore to this day.

[David Stearns]

Oh, I'm sure. Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

I mean, that's not an exaggeration.

[David Stearns]

Well, I remember writing one column that I think my first column. Having grown up in New York City, reading New York City columnists my entire life, I'm not sure I quite grasped what collegiate journalism might be like. But yeah, I think I wrote a column talking about the lackluster play of the men's hockey team.

[Pablo Torre]

That's right.

[David Stearns]

And I don't think they appreciated that.

[Pablo Torre]

No. So this story has been like, leaked out in like baseball circles, but I was around for when this happened. You wrote a column advocating for Harvard students to go check out the women's ice hockey team. And you did it by saying, I'll just quote it briefly here for all you hockey fans who have watched the Crimson men play sleep inducing hockey this year, they're more effective than NYQUIL on their way to a 10 and 13 and 2 record, what will likely be an early departure from postseason play. Have you thought that maybe you're just heading over to Bright Hockey center at the wrong time? Maybe it's time to watch, you know, that other team. In the lore of. Of the newspaper, you go to practice because you show up. A columnist, a journalist always shows up after they kill someone in print. You know, show up and how close did the pucks get to your head?

[David Stearns]

To their credit, they wanted me to know that they had read it and, and didn't necessarily appreciate it. That was our freshman year, right?

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, it was February 20, 2004. Yeah, our freshman spring.

[David Stearns]

I think I was probably a Little bit more tame on the remainder of the articles and columns that I wrote during my short lived journalistic career. Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

So the other photo I have to show you is this one. Do you remember this?

[David Stearns]

Oh, that's in Barcelona.

[Pablo Torre]

That's right.

[David Stearns]

That's in Barcelona. That's right, yeah. What year was that? Was sophomore year.

[Pablo Torre]

Sophomore. Sophomore year. And in this photo, I am perched beneath this cat, the statue of this cat. You're wearing, you know, normal people clothes. I'm wearing this, this cap. And I looked and remembered what cap I was wearing and I just laughed to myself.

[David Stearns]

What are you wearing?

[Pablo Torre]

The emblem, the ny.

[David Stearns]

Is that Yankee cap?

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, yeah.

[David Stearns]

Oh, wow.

[Pablo Torre]

And I bring this up just to say, like, if you had told us, oh, by the way, in 20 years you're gonna be the general manager of the New York Mets, what would you have said at that moment in your life?

[David Stearns]

Yeah, of course I would have said, there's no, there's no chance. I think when you're that age in college, your ambitions are, or at least mine were much smaller. Right. Like you're trying to figure out how you're going to get through the next semester or what social event you're trying to go to, or what club you're trying to join. You know, I knew I wanted to work in baseball and that had you told me at that point, in 20 years you'll be working in baseball, I would've said, yeah, that sounds pretty good. And that makes sense. The thought that I could one day be running the team I grew up passionately rooting for would have seemed absurd to me. Nuts. Crazy. Yeah, crazy.

[Pablo Torre]

The biggest compliment I can pay you as a guy who grew up rooting for the Yankees and was unhinged about it. I remember putting a Yankee cap on the John Harvard statue. Me and Gabe Velez, another one of your roommates, stood on the thing, draped a Bernie Williams jersey over the statue. But I say all of that to say that the biggest compliment I can pay you is that for the first time in my life as a Yankee fan, I am jealous of the Mets.

[David Stearns]

That. That is nice to hear. I will take that compliment.

[Pablo Torre]

It's not a lie.

[David Stearns]

I will take that compliment.

[Pablo Torre]

It's not an exaggeration. It's a remarkable thing that you've been doing.

[David Stearns]

We're in a fun spot. And I think what I am most excited about, where we are as an organization is we're able to simultaneously embrace who we are. We're not the Yankees, but we are also now at the point where we are striving for consistent on field excellence and we believe that's achievable.

[Pablo Torre]

I wanted to set the psychological context though, for what you're really saying.

[David Stearns]

Okay.

[Pablo Torre]

Because the responsibility you have is kind of unique in sports when it comes to like the particular combination of inherited dramas and so close heartbreakers and that little brother complex of like, look, the Mets were never supposed to actually compete with the Yankees. And all of the money and all of the history that the Yankees have had. The Mets, for people who don't know. Right. 69 and 86, the two World Series. We were born in 85.

[David Stearns]

Yep.

[Pablo Torre]

So you don't have a psychological memory of the good times in the 80s.

[David Stearns]

This was a Mets town. So for people of sort of. Exactly. Our generation and maybe a little younger. Yes. There could be that notion that, oh, the Mets aren't meant to compete at the time.

[Pablo Torre]

That was my childhood. Mostly laughing at you.

[David Stearns]

I understand that. I think for people who were born in the 70s or perhaps a little earlier, you know, they grew up at a time where the Mets were the team in New York. And of course part of the story of that 86 team in the late 80s teams is that as good as they were, they couldn't sustain it.

[Pablo Torre]

Right.

[David Stearns]

And so that is truly the quest of where we are now is create the type of organization that can sustain top level success in a way that really throughout the history of the Mets, we haven't done it yet.

[Pablo Torre]

What's the saddest that you felt growing up as a Met fan? Is there a particular game, a moment?

[David Stearns]

Yeah. I mean. Kenny Rogers, ball four.

[Pablo Torre]

So walk us up to this. What?

[David Stearns]

So this was. This was a crazy game. This is the 1999 NLCS. Mets go down 30 in the series, win an incredible game 4. John Ulerud gets two RBI single up the middle off of John Rocker in the eighth inning to put the Mets ahead. Mets win game four, down three one, they win game five on the famous Robin Ventura grand slam. Single in the rain.

[Sports Announcer]

A drive to right back to Georgia, gone, a grand slam.

[David Stearns]

So now all of a sudden there's this momentum and Mets fans feel the hope that we often feel. Go to Atlanta and immediately fall down. I want to say five. Nothing in that game. Like it was either five or six. Nothing but. And then just claw back and claw back, tie the game. I think at one point took the lead late in the game but couldn't hold it. And then, you know, extra innings, bases loaded. I think there were two, if I'm remembering this correctly. Like, there were two pitchers available left in the pen and it was Kenny Rogers or Octavio Dotel and went with Kenny Rogers and loaded the bases and then ultimately walked in the winning run.

[Sports Announcer]

The 3:2 pitch bring on the Yankees. Well, if it's close, Andrew Jones with a strike, swung at it. But this is not close. This is ball four. Ball game over.

[David Stearns]

That may have been the, the roughest moment of my Met fandom. What is particularly sad about that is the Mets had acquired Kenny Rogers at the deadline that year and he was awesome for them. Like, he. There's no way the Mets make the playoffs without Kenny Rogers down the stretch there and then that is unfortunately his Met's legacy. That one image that we just saw is unfortunately the legacy.

[Pablo Torre]

Right. The whole thing people should understand if they're not familiar with the psychology of a Met fan is that you guys show up to school the next day.

[David Stearns]

That's the thing is fair. Yes. We show up to school the next day, take the medicine, and then look longingly towards next year. Because the gift and the curse of, of the Mets fan.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes. When it comes to like, the Mets and money. Right. Like, hone in on that for a second. I just want to speed run through some of this. Like, the Yankees always had more money. The Mets, the Will Pons. I mean, I will say this, you don't have to, but like, infamously, the Will Pons, Bernie Madoff billion dollar clawback lawsuit reduced Met payrolls. In the years after that, after maoff gets arrested in 08, it's a fraught history. Just when it comes to, like, how are we going to pay to keep up? And at the same time, this is the team that inspired you all of this to like, get into baseball in the first place. And you don't start at, you know, a glamorous spot. I remember that you interned with the Brooklyn Cyclones, right?

[David Stearns]

Yeah, I interned with the Brooklyn Cyclones. That was my first job in professional baseball.

[Pablo Torre]

What does that entail? Everything.

[David Stearns]

So if you're a minor league baseball intern, you are doing everything and anything so that, that, you know, power washing bathrooms after the game, pulling tarp. Yeah. You also got exposure to player development at a level that I would never get exposure at again. Because as I grew in my career, it was tough for me to get that type of true on the ground observation. See what players had to go through at that level. It's not easy. And so I think back to that not only for sort of the crazy stuff that I did, but also just the education I got on what the minor leagues are really like. And how players grow and develop as they go through their baseball journey.

[Pablo Torre]

Right. The kind of sicko that you have to be, though, to be like, I just spent a summer in part power washing these bathrooms and I. I love this.

[David Stearns]

Yeah. I look at 11:30 at night power washing a bathroom in Coney Island. I'm not sure I'm thinking to myself, like, this is the dream. But I looked forward to coming back to work the next day.

[Pablo Torre]

I feel like at one point I heard about you, like, getting in the mascot costume.

[David Stearns]

Oh, yeah, they have the hot dog race, the Coney Island Nathan's hot dog race. And I would run as one of the hot dogs.

[Pablo Torre]

How were you? How was your foot speed? How was your run?

[David Stearns]

So not great. I mean, if you've ever been in any of these costumes, like, they're much heavier than they think and they often are hot and smell terrible. So I don't think I was a particularly effective hot dog racer. And I'm sure I cost some people some money.

[Pablo Torre]

That's not right. I mean, so many kids right now, like, your job is the dream job. You know, that post Moneyball generation of it's kids playing fantasy baseball. It's kids doing all of this stuff. Video games, they are learning. Okay, I'm not going to be a player, but this is actually what I want to do. This is my fantasy. So in terms of like, how you actually climbed the ladder from the hot dog suit, what did you do?

[David Stearns]

My career was not linear. It took me four internships to finally get a full time job. When we graduated college together, I had no idea what I was doing.

[Pablo Torre]

I remember that like, it wasn't like, oh, Dave's on the fast track.

[David Stearns]

No, I did not have a job. I did not have an internship. In fact, I'd been turned down from multiple internships that I had applied to in baseball that summer.

[Pablo Torre]

How do you apply for these jobs, though? Just like, practically speaking, what do you do?

[David Stearns]

Yeah, so at that point, you send out letters, like, literally send out letters to anyone and everyone in baseball. Now it's all done online.

[Pablo Torre]

And how many letters are you sending?

[David Stearns]

I sent hundreds. I mean, hundreds. Oh, sure, yeah. I mean, I couldn't tell you exactly how many, but so there's this book called the Baseball America Directory. It lists everyone who's in baseball. And then I just wrote letters and eventually a couple people got back to me.

[Pablo Torre]

Do you remember fondly?

[David Stearns]

Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I got my. So after the summer in Brooklyn, I then interned for The Pittsburgh Pirates for two summers.

[Pablo Torre]

Yep.

[David Stearns]

And the reason I got that is because a guy named John Mercurio, who at the time was their director of baseball operations, got back to me. I had sent him a letter. He handed it off to someone else who gave me a call and ultimately hired me as a. As an intern. And from there, that's kind of like, you know, just someone eventually in Pittsburgh recommended me for a job at the Arizona Fall League, and then I applied for an internship with the Mets, and then someone there at the Mets recommended me for a job at the commissioner's office, and that's how I got my first full time job.

[Pablo Torre]

Right, right. Working on the collective bargain agreement.

[David Stearns]

Yeah. So I, Yes, I ultimately advanced in the commissioner's office and was able to work on the CBA in 2011.

[Pablo Torre]

Again, for people who don't know, like, the CBA is the legal text that governs the sport and contracts and the rul. All of it. And at what point are you getting a sense like, oh, wait a minute, I'm finding a niche here. I am the guy who can do blank. Like, what is the blank?

[David Stearns]

What was my niche? My niche was kind of like, I worked hard, and because I was kind of always around, they gave me more work.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, there's something about the smart kid who went to a fancy school who's willing to, like, power wash, literally and figuratively. I just remember, like, watching you from afar climb the ladder in a very, again, unglamorous way, and then you coming on the other side being, like, seemingly. My perspective, having not actually talked to you about this before, is you have this developed and acute sense of money flowing inside of this economy.

[David Stearns]

I think I understand the economics of our game because I've seen it from a variety of different angles. I've seen it from the side of the commissioner's office and the macro level. I've seen it from small markets. I've seen it from very large markets. I've seen it through clubs who have gone through very dramatic rebuilds. I do think I understand the economics of the game from a variety of different perspectives and can try to view it from different lenses when I need to in terms of how that informs roster construction and what I actually am paid to do now, I think it depends on where you are and the resources you have at your disposal and the type of market you're in.

[Pablo Torre]

So at this point, just to get the Moneyball part of it in, because that's sort of like a shorthand, but like, Moneyball is published in 03. Had you read the book by this point?

[David Stearns]

Oh, yeah, I read it. I read it while we were still in high school. To the extent there was like a light bulb moment for me is when Theo got hired by the Red Sox. You see someone with a background, a non professional playing background, Gale grad, Yale grad. He didn't have an advanced degree in statistics.

[Pablo Torre]

So that's part of the reason why I'm painting this picture. It's because you're, you were not like computer science PhD math guy.

[David Stearns]

No.

[Pablo Torre]

But like Theo Epstein, you found again, a niche that I'm trying to just sort of crystallize.

[David Stearns]

Yes. I think that there are so many elements and so many different sources of information that we have to account for in these positions. And so to the extent I found a niche, and I think it's probably a similar niche that CEOs find or presidents of companies find in other industries as well, is you have to be able to manage information.

[Pablo Torre]

There are a lot of inputs.

[David Stearns]

There are a lot of inputs. And you probably have to over time develop a philosophy as to which inputs you're going to invest in which inputs are the most important when time is of the essence.

[Pablo Torre]

So this skill set is developed as you go and become the assistant GM of the Astros. And that's 2012 to 2015, by the way, just for the record, gone before scandal.

[David Stearns]

Yeah, I was there for a lot of bad baseball. We lost a lot of bad, we lost a lot of games.

[Pablo Torre]

You considered banging on trash cans when you were there because it would have helped.

[David Stearns]

That was not, that was not a topic of discussion while I was there.

[Pablo Torre]

But, but your reputation, truly in the front office there, in all seriousness, is growing to the point where you become the youngest GM hired in baseball at the time 2015, and you get to the brewers and these are two small market franchises, again measured by TV revenue. Milwaukee, Houston, not as much TV money as, say, New York. And at that point, when you're developing what your sources that you trust are, can you give me a sense of like, what that means and whether, even more helpfully maybe how much variance is there across the league in terms of what people trust?

[David Stearns]

That is a, a great question. And because I don't have access to other 29 clubs, I can't, I can't explicitly tell you. What I can tell you is like, you know, I, I've worked, I worked for a number of general managers in my career. So even as an intro with the Mets, Omar Maniah, intern with the Pirates, Dave Littlefield, Chris Antonetti, with the Guardians. Jeff Luno with the Astros. This may have been the greatest gift of my career, is working for so many different people.

[Pablo Torre]

Like, it's a lot.

[David Stearns]

All of them led in very different ways, valued different sources of information, had very different decision making structures. Whenever I went from team to team, I was always pretty amazed by how different it was. And so that taught me there's no one way to do this. There's no one. You gotta be good at this or you have to look at that. Look, I do think we are all seeking the most predictive information possible, but that process starts so far before you actually get to the guys with fancy math degrees or the ladies with fancy math degrees who are actually creating the models. It starts like, what are you investing in? What are you collecting?

[Pablo Torre]

Right.

[David Stearns]

What technologies are you going to take a flyer on that maybe five years from now are going to give your organization a competitive advantage? And I, and I think all the people I worked for looked at those questions very differently and probably helped inform how I look at it now.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. When you look back at Milwaukee, though, and again, you oversee what is arguably, I think, the most successful stretch for that franchise. It's four straight playoff births, 2018-2021.

[Sports Announcer]

For a fourth straight year, the brewers are playoff bound.

[Pablo Torre]

How would you describe what you implemented there that made you think to yourself, I'm onto something. I'm getting a sense of what I want to do.

[David Stearns]

I think I may have read the room pretty well. And so I went in there understanding where the organization was from a talent perspective, understanding that with that talent presently in the organization, the distribution of talent between the major league level and the minor league levels, you weren't going to get to consistent competitiveness at that time. So you needed some form of reset. I also understand that the ownership group there, led by Mark at Nasio, are incredibly competitive, and going through some sort of prolonged reboot like the Astros had done or like the Cubs were doing at that time, was not a recipe for success there. There was not going to be an Appetite for a 5 to 7 year bad baseball draft at the top and slowly build up. So I knew we were going to have to take some risks. I didn't know exactly where those risks were going to occur. You know, the first thing you do in those situations is you get the payroll down to get the business a little bit more sustainable, which we did. And then the risks that we began to take was we built up the farm system pretty quickly, first by trading veterans, which is a fairly conventional tactic.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah.

[David Stearns]

But Then once we did, we probably pivoted towards adding to the team at a much earlier phase than people had done previously. So, you know, the, the best example of that is we traded four top 100 prospects in the game for Christian Yalich coming off of the 2017 season. That is very unusual to do in a small market. Milwaukee is a small market. Right.

[Pablo Torre]

You're trading cost control talent, four of.

[David Stearns]

Them for an established major leaguer who was on a club friendly contract, who had a lot of indicators that we really liked. But that is something that really had not been done. We made some other more minor moves where we were trading future value for more present value at a stage in the organization when I think a lot of people were scratching their heads as to why are they doing it. And I think we made a bet that we could identify and it was a risk. It was definitely a risk.

[Pablo Torre]

Were you nervous making the risk?

[David Stearns]

No. You can't get nervous making decisions in.

[Pablo Torre]

These jobs that I've never known you or even seen you freak out in any way.

[David Stearns]

Yeah, it's like it's comically.

[Pablo Torre]

You're comically even keeled dating back to 20 years ago, I would say.

[David Stearns]

Yeah. I think for. For better or worse, I don't get rattled too easily. Like I think that's in this job an asset.

[Pablo Torre]

How important is it to have that numbness to what would panic other people? Like the heart rate monitor thing. Right. Of like. But truly like when I think about. Because Theo Epstein I don't think of as emotional in that way either. I'm thinking about like what goes into this scouting report of you that actually ends up being meaningful.

[David Stearns]

Look, I, I think making in general, in a leadership position, making unemotional decisions is helpful there. I do think there's an element of emotion and certainly an element of authenticity that is essential for leading an organization and leading groups of people. But once you get to the decision making process, like trying to stay as factual, objective and unemotional, I think over and over again has proven leads to better decisions than the opposite.

[Pablo Torre]

But I say this to say that that's not a universal trait among people who do the job of executive in sports across all of these facets.

[David Stearns]

So that's true. I'm sort of running through my head of people who have done this for a long time across sports. And I would say most of the people who are running through my head probably have an element of consistency to them.

[Pablo Torre]

Sure. The ones who have made it that far.

[David Stearns]

Yeah. But not all. I can think of some executives who have had very established careers in professional sports who are a little bit more fiery.

[Pablo Torre]

And by the way, in my business, God bless them.

[David Stearns]

Yeah, that's exactly great.

[Pablo Torre]

It's great to have someone who's like, let me tell you what the fuck I feel like right now.

[David Stearns]

Like, if I were trying to be, you know, fiery and bombastic like that, that would be incredibly fake. That's. That's not. That's not who I am.

[Pablo Torre]

Right. That is. And again, I guess I'm here to.

[David Stearns]

Just fact check that. Correct.

[Pablo Torre]

Like, it's just.

[David Stearns]

It's.

[Pablo Torre]

It's the way you've been as far as I've known you. Even when pucks were flying at your head.

[David Stearns]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Pablo Torre]

But. But the point being that 2022 comes around, you step down from that role in Milwaukee. And simultaneous to this timeline, I just want to get the details right here. November Steve Cohn, who is, again, for those unacquainted, one of the hundred richest people in the world. He's a hedge fund manager, multi billionaire. He acquires officially majority ownership of his childhood team. And yours.

[David Stearns]

Yep. And his wife's.

[Pablo Torre]

And his wife's.

[David Stearns]

Alex. Alex Cohen. Yeah. Yeah. Big Mets fan growing up.

[Pablo Torre]

Right.

[David Stearns]

Good afternoon. I went to my first Mets game with my dad at the old Polo Grounds. Years later, my friends and I used to sit in the upper deck at Shea Stadium. That makes today a dream come true. Not just for me, but for my wife, Alex, and my whole family.

[Pablo Torre]

So here you have these people who have felt in a real sense how important this team is to them and to New York and quadrants of it, precincts of it. They buy from the Will Ponds. $2.42 billion, and he is the richest owner in baseball. And now taking us to fall 2023 after two seasons, he hires you.

[David Stearns]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Do you remember the day you signed your contract?

[David Stearns]

Yeah, I do. I mean, I remember both the day and exactly where I was when we agreed to terms. I remember exactly where I was when I. When I clicked the mouse on the. On the docusign.

[Pablo Torre]

And where were you when this was happening? How vivid is this memory?

[David Stearns]

I mean, it's very. So the day I agreed to terms, I was actually in a hotel room in another city because another club was recruiting me.

[Pablo Torre]

And so you were an in demand prospect.

[David Stearns]

Well, I don't know about that, but it's true. I was an experienced executive, and there were a couple jobs that were open, and so I talked to a couple different teams, and then when I clicked The Mouse and DocuSign, my house in Milwaukee had, like, a converted attic that we had turned into an office. And so I was just sitting up there.

[Pablo Torre]

By yourself?

[David Stearns]

By myself. And I was like, all right, here it is. And so I just. I clicked it.

[Pablo Torre]

It's not quite the cinematic climax, but it feels completely appropriate that you calmly said, well, it's time to live my childhood dream now. CL. Foreign. We reminded all of the time that sports is a different sort of a business. Yeah.

[David Stearns]

No question.

[Pablo Torre]

These are institutions that have civic feeling to them, emotional stakes, ancestral pressures. And New York. I mean, look, the whole thing about New York. Right. Because I, again, I grew up living it, watching it, mythologizing it, admittedly. But, like, it is different.

[David Stearns]

Sure.

[Pablo Torre]

How would you characterize what actually is different about operating in New York?

[David Stearns]

So, paradoxically, I'm much more anonymous here, which is. Which is wonderful.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. You take the subway. Yeah.

[David Stearns]

You know, in Milwaukee, because it's a much smaller town, you know, there are fewer diversions in Milwaukee. The brewers are maybe slightly more central to the culture of Milwaukee than any sports team is to the culture of New York, just because we have so many different attractions here in New York. So I'm pretty much completely anonymous in my day to day life when I'm not at the ballpark, which is wonderful. But I think to have this opportunity at this point in my career to really embrace the bigness of that and everything that comes with it is what I wanted to do and has been a lot of fun for me.

[Pablo Torre]

To me, it's always felt like it tests people. Like the spotlight is actually hotter. Some people melt. Other people are cool enough to just sort of enjoy what they can in, again, a sort of funhouse mirror sort of way. It's all strange, but, you know, I've been listening to talk radio, dipping back into it just to be like, it is absurd. It just. Like I'm. I'm hearing the guy I wrote sports with in college, like, they're debating you all of the time.

[Met Fan Caller]

I am a huge, huge Met fan. I'm Die Hard. Me and my son, my wife, we go across the country to see them. You know, I have more faith in this. In this. This ownership and stern than I've ever had in my entire adult life. I think that the Met fans need to calm down, because they will get it done.

[Pablo Torre]

You're a character now. As much as you're anonymous, you're also very, very, by name, this person.

[David Stearns]

Yep.

[Pablo Torre]

And, you know, if you're not able to handle that hard, hard job to.

[David Stearns]

Have the way I handle that Aspect of the job is I just ignore it. I mean, I, I am not on social media. I do not listen to talk radio. I, I am grateful that talk radio exists in this town because it, it provokes the passion of our fan base.

[Pablo Torre]

Did you listen as a kid?

[David Stearns]

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Oh, every afternoon I listen to talk radio.

[Pablo Torre]

You're avoiding your childhood self is what I do.

[David Stearns]

Yeah. And if at some point I'm not doing this job and still living in this town, I will listen to it again.

[Pablo Torre]

You were a hard hitting columnist.

[David Stearns]

Yeah, exactly.

[Pablo Torre]

Who listened to talk radio. And now you're the guy who's like, I can't.

[David Stearns]

Yeah. Because I don't think that's going to make me better at my job.

[Pablo Torre]

What did you grow up listening to, though?

[David Stearns]

Mike and the Mad Dog. You know Steve Summers.

[Pablo Torre]

Yep.

[David Stearns]

You know, when I was growing up, Gary Cohen, Bob Murphy, Ed Coleman were the three primary Mets radio broadcasters. We listened to those guys a ton. So, you know, I would listen to the fan. Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

As did we all, of course.

[David Stearns]

Of course. It was central to the sports culture of New York.

[Pablo Torre]

So you've made this choice to be, again, very logically cloistered away from all of that stuff. Which brings me to more famously, there was Grimace.

[David Stearns]

Yep.

[Pablo Torre]

When Grimace showed up to throw the first pitch, did you have a sense that something historic was happening? Man's. Please direct your attention to the pitcher's mound.

[David Stearns]

All right, Grimace, it's your pitch. Even after this whole thing, when people start talking about Grimace, I had no idea what they were talking about.

[Pablo Torre]

You didn't know who Grimace was?

[David Stearns]

Had no idea who grimace was.

[Pablo Torre]

The McDonald's. You didn't?

[David Stearns]

Nope.

[Pablo Torre]

You were watching the fan, totally oblivious to Grimace.

[David Stearns]

Well, was Grimace a thing when we were growing up?

[Pablo Torre]

Yes, Grimace was a thing.

[David Stearns]

I did not know that Grimace had to be explained to me.

[Pablo Torre]

I liked how you know Steve Summers, but not Grimace.

[David Stearns]

Yeah. That tells you, tells you all you need to know, probably. And then because I'm not on social media, I didn't understand what was happening with the Grimace phenomenon and the Mets. And so that also. That also had to be explained to me.

[Pablo Torre]

And so I'm going to jump in here to also explain what was happening with the Grimace phenomenon and the Mets to you, dear listener, just in case, because this part of the story starts on the morning of June 12, 2024, back when the New York Mets were bad, under 570 and a half games back in the division, that kind of bad. But that night, throwing the first pitch for the Mets before Their game against the Marlins was a visitor, a certain visitor from McDonaldland.

[David Stearns]

Yeah, it was. It was an education for me.

[Pablo Torre]

How would you describe what Grimace is now that it's been. Now that he has been explained to you?

[David Stearns]

I mean, a purple furry McDonald's mascot that threw out a first pitch of the Mets game.

[Pablo Torre]

I dislike how the. The GM who raced in a hot dog mascot costume just had no idea.

[David Stearns]

No, no, yeah. No, no.

[Pablo Torre]

It's just a real betrayal of kind.

[David Stearns]

No, no, no idea.

[Pablo Torre]

And yet David Stearns, Mets, proceeded to win that game that night and the next and the next and the next and the next and the next, ultimately winning seven games in a row, becoming a real thing online. Whereas the extremely offline David Stearns had no idea. Which is just funny. Right. Like the guy running the team was too busy tinkering with the roster, making baseball decisions under the radar adjustments to realize a phenomenon in his own building. But the Mets record, when you look back at it, it was 28 and 37 before Grimace. After Grimace, they were 61 and 36, the single best record in baseball. And you guys had. I mean, I just had to look this up. You guys had 11 walk offs.

[David Stearns]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

The most in baseball.

[David Stearns]

Y.

[Pablo Torre]

That season. And my jealousy is sparked because you guys become truly, by the time it's the postseason, you become the best TV show in America. Did it feel like that to you?

[David Stearns]

It. It actually did. And it was nuts. It. It was the. You know, I experienced it obviously in the ballpark every night. And I, I think for a period there, and this is now the expectation we need to live up to as an organization. But like, for a period, we were the best sports experience in America.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[David Stearns]

Like I think September and October at Citi Field with what we had going in, the energy there, I mean, to get into the post season and then continue to move through the postseason, the, the energy and atmosphere at Citi Field was. Was as good or better as anything I've experienced and jealousy inducing.

[Sports Announcer]

And Lindor gets under one to center field. Harris going back. Back near the wall. And it's out of here. Lynn Sanity again. Francisco Lindorf flips the script with a two run homer. And the Mets go in front eight to seven. Oh, wow.

[Pablo Torre]

I mean, Lindor, the Francisco Lindor homer to make the playoffs.

[David Stearns]

Yep.

[Pablo Torre]

Pete Alonso in the ninth to beat them. To beat the Brewers.

[David Stearns]

Yep.

[Pablo Torre]

In the wild card round. And then. Yeah. It's the grand slam.

[David Stearns]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

In the division.

[David Stearns]

Yeah. I mean, that is anyone who was at that game, Game four versus Philly at Citi Field would say that was like the best sports moment they witnessed in person because the. Just the explosion of the stadium Lindor.

[Sports Announcer]

Towards right center field. This one is back. It is gone. Grand slam. And the door puts the Mets on top. The biggest swing of the season for New York.

[David Stearns]

It was the first time the Mets had ever celebrated any sort of clinch at City Field. The Mets had never clinched a playoff appearance, had never clinched a postseason win at City Field. So that was the first celebration in City Fields history. I think all that coming together made that a. A really unique night.

[Pablo Torre]

The fact that it kept on happening like they did it again. Like, again, you. It was, it was, it was serialized. Only now do I realize that you interned for a team that was right next to a literal wooden roller coaster.

[David Stearns]

Yep.

[Pablo Torre]

But it felt like a wooden roller coaster. It was like, oh, this can't possibly stay on the tracks. And you guys took it to the nlcs.

[David Stearns]

And I'll say, while like, being a part of it, there was almost no question it was going to stay on the tracks. We were legitimately good. We were the best team in baseball from whatever date you just gave until the end of the regular season. And we played a lot of good teams in that stretch. So all of sort of the under the surface metrics backed that up. We were the best team in baseball during that stretch and we played like it and it felt like it.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, that's admittedly me projecting as a Yankee fan. How are they doing this? So there was one moment speaking of that celebration at Citi Field.

[David Stearns]

Oh, boy.

[Pablo Torre]

And I just want to show it on my computer here because it's this incredibly cinematically ecstatic celebration in the locker room in the clubhouse. And I spy you. And so everybody's spraying. They have scuba gear. And I'm like, ah, there's Dave. Your hands are in your pockets just like on the outer ring as everybody is losing their mind and you're like, smiling but, like, not freaking out in any way.

[David Stearns]

Yeah. As we've covered before, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't freak out a lot. I will say, like, I, I enjoy those celebrations.

[Pablo Torre]

Were you tempted to get into the scrum with the players or do you?

[David Stearns]

Well, they generally get me into the scrum at some point, but. But I, I'll stand to the side for a little while.

[Pablo Torre]

But in all earnestness, like, what's it like being the cool team in New York? Is there a just this feels surreal, like, off field experience you've had now that the Mets are this way.

[David Stearns]

So I think the surreal experiences I've had have more involved the Mets and being around the Mets and just the experiences and the relationships I've been able to build. My first couple weeks on the job, I'm reaching out to various Mets alumni, introducing myself, and trying to build connections with past great players. There's sort of no bigger figure than Daryl Strawberry in that. And so I had breakfast with Daryl Strawberry and forging a relationship with Daryl Strawberry, and, like, he sends you a text message and he signs it with a Strawberry emoji, which. Which is so incredible. Or just being able to. To, you know, forge a little bit of a relationship and get to know David Wright a little bit and. And, you know, these truly great Mets who have contributed a lot to the organization and are genuinely excited for what we're doing right now and, like, take pride in what we're doing and are proud to be associated with that. And that. That, for me, is really cool. Like, David Wright and Darryl Strawberry and Keith Hernandez and John Franco and all these guys are proud to be associated with, like, what we're doing and what I'm helping create. That is surreal that that group of humans thinks what we're doing is really cool.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. You just described a lucid dream.

[David Stearns]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Which brings us to, like, the. The biggest, priciest new member of.

[David Stearns]

Yeah, the.

[Pablo Torre]

The group that you signed. I mean, when it comes to surreal. Like, the most surreal headline I saw involving you was when you took Juan Soto from the Yankees. 15 years, $765 million. Unthinkable, I imagine, when you're operating a small market team.

[Sports Announcer]

King Cohen has delivered like we knew he would. Juan Soto is a New York man. King Cohen stole him away from the Yankees.

[Pablo Torre]

For people who don't know Juan Soto, people are like, wait a minute. Why is he worth that? Who is this guy? What do you. How do you explain the richest contract in the history of sports?

[David Stearns]

Players very rarely get to free agency at such a young age. So Juan's going to play at 26 this year. Most players get to free agency as they're approaching 30. And so players are generally open for competitive bidding at a point in which they may have already peaked as a performer. Here we had a situation. We have a player who's had as good a start to his major league career as arguably any hitter in the history of baseball becomes freely available for competitive bidding as he's entering his peak years and has proven that he performs at an extraordinarily high level on the biggest Stages. This is a player who's played in multiple World Series, won a World Series, performed well in our market, which isn't always a given. And so you add all these things up and we knew this was going to break all sorts of records. And as an organization, as we evaluated this, you know, it's tough to foresee another identically situated free agency emerging in the Next, let's say seven to 10 years. And so you had one shot at this type of investment, and we put our best foot forward and fortunately we got it.

[Pablo Torre]

It feels like you've become acquainted with spending as it might relate to those next seven to 10 years. Like, this is the time to make the biggest signing in sports history.

[David Stearns]

Yeah, like, regardless of how deep, you know an organization's pockets are, you can't do multiple of these. In terms of these generational type of contracts. You probably have one shot to shoot. And we felt that this was the right person to take that shot.

[Pablo Torre]

It's like Ted Williams, Juan Soto, there.

[David Stearns]

Aren'T a lot of comparisons. And when you start having to go back 80 to 100 years to find the closest comparisons, I think that kind of tells you all you need to know about what this guy has done to this point in his career and.

[Pablo Torre]

Meanwhile your whole thing. And I want to quote my friend Jeff Passon here, just in terms of the compliment he paid you in writing. Perhaps the best in the business at finding value around the edges to complement a team of stars. That is a compliment. That's how we crystallize what you've learned over your time climbing the ladder. It's interesting. It's, I imagine, tense at times to balance, like, well, we can spend, but my rational brain is telling me that that is an overpay. And so just in terms of how you do that, again, Pete Alonso is the most recent example. But even just generally, like the premise of you're the guy who mastered small market baseball and now you're the guy who, who gets to, to outspend, literally, the Yankees.

[David Stearns]

Money is an advantage in this game. And, and no salary cap. There's no salary cap. There are pretty substantial penalties, luxury tax penalties, which we incur at a very high level. And Steve has since his ownership tenure began. And so, so money and resources are an advantage, but they are only an advantage to the point where you actually spend them wisely and don't actually freeze your roster in ways that are unproductive. So the advantage that that small market teams have is that they can't make the big mistake. You can't go out and sign normally the 7, 8, 10 year high dollar deal because you cannot afford it. It's not part of your business model. And so you have this constant roster flexibility and the constant ability to evaluate your roster in real time. It's much easier to make changes on rosters that are a little bit more flexible. And so I think what the best organizations do in bigger markets and what we are striving to do is have the right balance, invest at a very high level in players that we think can perform at a very high level for a long period of time and then also leave ourselves the type of roster flexibility to continue to evaluate our team and make changes and updates when we can.

[Pablo Torre]

Part of what I was entering this conversation expecting was like, but there's your heart and your head, right? There's like, ah, I want to do this. We have the resources and it just feels like the heart you have so under control.

[David Stearns]

Yeah. So this, this gets to the question. I got like the fan versus executive side of me and I, I, that at times, frankly maybe is a little bit tougher to, to control or balance.

[Pablo Torre]

Does young David Stern's met fan listening to sports talk radio, does he weigh in in your head?

[David Stearns]

Sure. And at times the younger version of me, the 16 year version of me probably thinks I'm doing a shitty job. So I can't blame a fan when they think I should be doing better. So look, I'm still a fan of other teams, right? And so I know what it is to be a fan. I also know what it is to sit in this seat and have to make really impactful decisions that impact organizations and people's lives for long, long periods of time. And we need to do that as responsibly and carefully as possible. And so for those decisions, I'm trying to put the fan version of myself to the side.

[Pablo Torre]

What I found out today, I suppose at the end here is that, yeah, it is true what I learned 20 years ago, you're also just not gonna flinch if something unexpected happens to be heading your way.

[David Stearns]

No, that's, that's been the way I've always been. I've always been pretty even keeled. I think I have developed an understanding that very few things in life are truly worth getting riled up about. And you know, generally the decisions on a baseball team, while very important, very impactful, you know, are not among them. At least, at least when I'm sitting in this seat now, when I'm watching.

[Pablo Torre]

The Knicks, I was going to say.

[David Stearns]

When I'm watching the Knicks.

[Pablo Torre]

Your other psychosis.

[David Stearns]

When I'm watching the Knicks, I can get riled up about that. So that's, that's very different.

[Pablo Torre]

That is a different therapy session.

[David Stearns]

Yes, that's exactly, exactly right.

[Pablo Torre]

David Stearns, president of Baseball ops for your New York Mets. An insane thing that we got to do, catching up.

[David Stearns]

Absolutely. Appreciate it. It was fun.

[Pablo Torre]

This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out a Meadowlark Media production and I'll talk to you next time.