The Windup: The Roundtable | What is going on with the Mets in Free Agency?

Podcast: The Windup: A show about Baseball
Host(s): Andy McCullough, Sam Miller (Grant Brisbee absent)
Date: December 12, 2025
Episode: 196

Episode Overview

This episode of The Roundtable zeroes in on the New York Mets’ dramatic free agency week following the 2025 winter meetings. With both Pete Alonso and Edwin Diaz departing, co-hosts Andy McCullough and Sam Miller explore the fallout—for the Mets' roster, their fans, and the philosophy of team building. The episode also covers fan sentimentality, media narratives, decision-making philosophies in front offices, parallels to past Dodgers teams, trade rumors for Tarek Skubal, and the unique challenges presented by modern baseball economics.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Where’s the Host? | FOMO & Missing the Winter Meetings

Timestamps: 03:07–06:24

• Grant Brisbee is absent; Andy and Sam set the stage by discussing not being at the winter meetings and whether they experience "FOMO" (fear of missing out)—leading into a tangential but revealing conversation about adolescence, acceptance, and social dynamics (03:34).
• Sam’s reflection: “When I was younger, I thought that not being somewhere was a sign of your status... Eventually, I aged out of that. And so now I’m just happy to be on my own.” (03:39)

2. Mets in Free Agency: Losses, Perceptions & Narrative

Timestamps: 06:25–14:00

a. What Happened?

• Mets lost Edwin Diaz (Dodgers, 3yr/$69M) and Pete Alonso (Orioles, 5yr/$155M).
• Sentiment that the Mets are “in shambles”—but Sam and Andy argue this perception is amplified by the timing and narrative constructs of the winter meetings (06:25–07:30).

b. Narrative vs. Numbers

• “The winter meetings are a false construction… it’s a narrative-based sport… it helps to have the narrative on your side. And that is a real problem that the Mets will be dealing with heading into this season.” (Andy, 07:30)

c. Fans’ Emotional Attachment

• Sam observes the unusually strong emotional response from Mets fans to the loss of the team’s familiar “core” players—drawing parallels to Yankees’ “Core Four” even though the Mets’ core had limited championship success (08:16–11:10).
• Notable quote: “It really is as though the Yankees broke up the core four after like 9/11 in 2001... They’re treating the loss of Nimmo, Alonso, Diaz, like that.” (Sam, 08:48)
• Emotional attachment surprises the hosts: “You could imagine the typical Mets fan being like, ‘finally, these dudes were not getting it done’. But the emotional attachment… is way more than the average fan outside of New York probably realized.” (Sam, 10:32)

3. What Is the “Right Thing” for a Franchise?

Timestamps: 11:10–18:09

a. Replace or Retain?

• Andy discusses the actuarial (WAR-based) vs. philosophical perspectives: “What is the right thing for the New York Mets to do?” (11:10)
• Stearns’ move: Moving away from a core that had “two good years out of seven”—a logical, if painful, choice.

b. Defining Success

• Sam’s old tweet: “The next big thing in sports analytics is going to be hiring philosophers” (14:00).
• “Step one is defining what your desires are, what your needs are, how you define success… and that is not as easy as it seems.”
• Notable quote: “The goal is to win a World Series, sure. But a World Series is contingent on things outside your control… so much of it is actually outside of your control.” (Sam, 14:17)

c. The Mets’ Unique Owner Dynamic

• Ownership is not cheap—the Mets are not under private equity pressure, but a hedge fund “passion project” led by Steve Cohen (17:30).
• The hosts emphasize Cohen's volatility and commitment to investing, for now: “I think what we all want is the owner that views it as a passion project slash hobby… but is going to be really emotional and maybe irrationally so. Now, there's a risk there.” (Sam, 18:20)

4. Mets’ Roster Strategy: Run Prevention, Defense, and Free Agency Tactics

Timestamps: 21:11–27:02

• Stearns’ clear priority: “Get better at run prevention” (21:30)
• Trades and non-renewals fit this objective: Alonso and Nimmo gone, replaced with better defenders (e.g., Marcus Semien for Nimmo).
• Andy: “David Stearns felt like we need to have a better, more dynamic, more athletic team and we need to field the baseball.” (23:26)
• Running it back? Andy and Sam agree: the core needed adjustment—pitching was a disaster, defense had declined, and positional “names” don’t guarantee improvement (24:55–27:02).

5. Media Reaction & the David Stearns Narrative

Timestamps: 27:03–30:42

• Stearns being blamed as the cold, “icy” agent of change; media framing as either “too cute by half” or “cheap” (Stephen A. Smith and NY Post cited, 27:27).
• Dodgers precedent: Sometimes letting stars walk is pragmatic, but it's hard to read when to “replace a quarter with two dimes and a nickel” or just keep the quarter (29:41).

6. The Leisure of Panic and Winter Meeting Optics

Timestamps: 30:47–36:30

• “It is really early in an offseason to be freaking out… you don’t have to sign the first guy off the board.” (Sam, 30:47)
• Big moves may still be coming; the “disaster” narrative would shift with a marquee signing (31:53).
• The nature of overreacting to free agent departures when nothing else is happening—how sequence and PR shape fan morale (34:27).

7. Parallels, Philosophy & the Owner Pendulum

Timestamps: 31:51–36:30

• Andy tells a cautionary tale of newspapers saved then decimated by a passionate owner—drawing a parallel to the risks of idiosyncratic baseball ownership (31:53–33:40)
• Is Cohen shifting focus to a Citi Field Casino and away from the team? The institutional guardrails vs. relying on one passionate billionaire: “Institutional guardrails are sometimes a little safer than having one person in control of everything.” (Andy, 33:56)

8. Tarek Skubal Trade Rumors & Deadline Dynamics

Timestamps: 40:06–54:16

• Sam’s prediction: “I think they’re going to trade for Tarek Skubal. The pieces are all lining up. That’s where their need is.” (Andy, 40:06)
• Discussion of whether Detroit should trade Skubal—should teams bank a great 2026 and risk losing a star to free agency, or cash in for a “package so big it’d be malpractice to turn it down”? (42:25)
• The creeping inevitability of a blockbuster deal; once the narrative is out, it often becomes reality (44:23–47:42).
• Andy on GM honesty: “If he didn’t want to trade Tarek Skubal, he would just say, ‘We’re not trading… We’re trying to win the World Series with him.’” (49:45)

9. Fun Fit & “Local Boy Comes Home” Narratives

Timestamps: 53:01–54:34

• Who would be the funniest team to acquire Skubal? “The Rockies are the funniest team to do anything.” (Andy, 53:05)
• Satire on the frequency of ‘player wants to go home’ storylines: “Every player comes from somewhere… I want to start tracking free agents who someone suggests…might go sign with a team because they grew up near there.” (Andy, 53:24)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It feels like almost nostalgic to have this team treated as some sort of entity where the parts all made something greater than the whole.”
  — Sam Miller (08:16)

• “From an actuarial standpoint… how will David Stearns and Steve Cohen replace those 10 wins above replacement next year?... But fans have a lot of affection for these players.”
  — Andy McCullough (11:10)

• “Step one is defining how you define success. And that is not as easy as it seems.”
  — Sam Miller (14:00)

• “I think what we all want is the owner that views it as a passion project slash hobby…”
  — Sam Miller (18:20)

• “David Stearns felt like we need to have a better, more dynamic, more athletic team and we need to field the baseball. … Is it going to work? I don't know, but it's a hard thing to sell.”
  — Andy McCullough (23:26)

• “It is really early in an offseason to be freaking out.”
  — Sam Miller (30:47)

Episode Timeline

| Timestamp | Topic | |-----------|----------------------------| | 03:07 | Opening; FOMO & winter meetings | | 06:25 | What happened to the Mets | | 11:10 | What is the “right” strategy for the Mets | | 14:00 | On defining success in baseball | | 17:30 | Mets’ ownership philosophy & risks | | 21:30 | The Mets' run prevention plan | | 27:03 | Media backlash to Stearns | | 31:53 | Risks of billionaire ownership | | 34:27 | “Cheap Mets” media narrative | | 40:06 | “I think they’re going to trade for Tarek Skubal” | | 44:49 | On leaks, media, & trade rumors | | 49:45 | GM honesty & narrative management | | 53:01 | “Funniest” trade fits—local boy myths | | 54:34 | Humor on origins of MLB players |

Final Thoughts

• The episode offers a reflective, skeptical, and at times wry look at how baseball teams—and their fans—react to change. The hosts urge patience, emphasize process over panic, and critique both actuarial and sentimental approaches to roster construction.
• The discussion is especially rich in its meta-commentary: on the media, ownership styles, and the slippery nature of truth in trade rumors.

For listeners who missed the episode:
Expect sharp, nuanced talk about the Mets’ crossroads, skepticism about instant winter-meetings narratives, reflections on team-building philosophy, and plenty of comedic analogies—all wrapped in conversational, lightly sardonic banter from two of baseball’s most incisive writers.