It was right around 14 months ago that the Yankees and Mets were both closing in on the World Series. The Yankees finally made it there for the first time in 15 years. It had been a ridiculously long period – for the Yankees, anyway – that felt like a baseball Ice Age to their fans. And properly so.
The Mets? They fell two victories short of the Series, even though the man now in charge of their baseball operations, David Stearns, obviously saw that run as being some kind of fluke. He’s not saying that loud, mind you. Stearns just keeps showing it by his actions. That means by the way he’s done everything except put some of the key players from that team on Ebay.
So now a big question for local baseball fans goes something like this:
Do they think their teams are closer to the World Series now than they were in October of 2024?
And there’s this: Do they trust that Stearns and Brian Cashman have the game to build the kind of winners Andrew Friedman and the Dodgers have built in Los Angeles? In sports, certainly at its highest and most expensive levels, you’re either moving toward the big trophy, or away from it. Even with spring training still a long way off – but a lot closer than it was when the season ended – it would be difficult at this point for either Stearns or Cashman to convince even the most optimistic of their fans that they can get the Yankees and the Mets back to where they were the October before last.
Even though the Mets ended up losing to the Dodgers in the ’25 National League Championship Series, they went toe-to-toe with the eventual champs. They also had a right, coming out of that series, to think they might be set up – because of Cohen’s money — to become the East Coast version of the LA Dodgers. Only after a 45-24 start last season they promptly turned into the East Coast version of the Angels.
Even with the way they face-downed over the second half of the season, it’s clear Stearns had convinced his owner, Steve Cohen, that he has a vision for championship baseball that extends far beyond just spending Uncle Steve’s money. Now did Stearns have a right to blow up the Mets the way he has? Of course he did, especially since Cohen has bestowed as much power on him as Cashman has under Hal Steinbrenner. Stearns has the run of Citi Field and will have it as long as Cohen can see his team moving in the direction of the World Series. When he doesn’t, and whenever that is, Stearns will take his vision for winning baseball somewhere else.
We keep talking about all the room Stearns has between now and Port St. Lucie. But Mets fans – about as much in love with Stearns these days as Yankee fans are with Cashman – have a perfect right to wonder how Marcus Semien and Devin Williams and Jorge Polanco are going to do better for the Mets than Pete Alonso and Edwin Diaz and Brandon Nimmo did; and who Plan B is for the Mets if they don’t sign Cody Bellinger, someone we keep hearing is the heart’s desire of both Cashman and Stearns. They have a right to wonder at the same time how next year’s pitching staff, as presently constituted, is going to be better than last year’s.
Forget about making the World Series for the moment and ask yourself what really can happen between now and pitchers and catchers to get the fan base to believe the Mets are going to make it past the Phillies this season.
It is more complicated with the Yankees who, will they very much want to bring back Bellinger, seem perfectly content to most roll things back for this season the way last season ended. Tell themselves that when Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodon and Clarke Schmidt are healthy, they ought to be even better than the team that won 94 games in 2025, tying them with the Blue Jays for most in the American League.
But since Cashman and his permanent government at the Stadium are so in love with numbers, here’s a deeper look at those 94 wins:
The ’25 Yankees were 28-34 in the regular season against other playoff teams. They were 5-8 against the Blue Jays team that boat-raced them in the regular season before nearly sweeping them in the second round of the playoffs until the Yankees mounted that big, rousing Yankee Stadium comeback in Game 3. In the end, and including that division series, the Yankees were 6-1l against the Blue Jays.
There’s more.
Overall, there were 16 teams in baseball that finished with a record of .500 or better last season. The Yankees had a losing record against half of those teams, and a winning record against only four. There was a lot of paper tiger to this team, even if they did get to 94. Truth is, they were very lucky to get past the Red Sox in their 3-game wild card series against the Sox.
Do I think both our teams are going to make some kind of big splash before the baseball winter officially ends? I still do. As much power as Cohen has ceded to Stearns – Uncle Steve’s heart’s desire – it would seem that he’s getting at least a little impatient. If not, he wouldn’t have acted like such a snowflake after published reports about the team’s spending had him issuing a public statement about “idiots.” He later cleaned that up by saying he was talking about the media, not his own fans. It was, as you can imagine, a tremendous relief to all concerned.
Cashman has been around forever. He was originally staked to a foundation built by Gene Michael with the Yankees of the 1990s, and has been building on that ever since, with one winning season after another, and a string of very good Yankee teams ultimately not good enough. Stearns built contending, small-market teams in Milwaukee and now here he is, doing a teardown and rebuild all at once and doing that – again – not so terribly long after a Mets team built by someone else nearly made it to the World Series.
Neither one is the best sports executive in town at the present time. That is Leon Rose of the Knicks. Rose – a former agent – showed up at the Garden and the Knicks were suddenly a playoff team again. Them Rose did his own teardown, completely reimagining the Knicks with Jalen Brunson and the other ‘Nova Knicks and Karl-Anthony Towns and OG and them. Now the Knicks have once again become the biggest game in town.
Rose built something out of nothing and the Knicks are legit contenders again to win it all. Can anybody say the same about our baseball teams right now?
THE METS’ SWEEPSTAKES, DAN CAMPBELL’S FOLLY & THE NFL’S SEASON OF CHAOS …
If I were the Yankees, I’d be just as interested in Bo Bichette as I am Cody Bellinger.
College football ought to start its season a week earlier, have its conference championship games Thanksgiving Weekend, then have play their tournament across December.
I agree with Mike Tannenbaum:
I think Jerry Jones should hire Rex Ryan as his next defensive coordinator, too.
Something never changes with these NFL pregame shows: They all act as if it’s open-mic night at the Chuckle Hut.
We are about to find out if John Harbaugh has a job for life with the Baltimore Ravens.
Lamar Jackson, too.
There’s never been a pro football season more wide-open than this one at this time of year, right?
You know who could win the upcoming Super Bowl in Santa Clara?
Just about anybody, is who.
I am going to ask this question again:
There’s no chance that Stearns can trade Gary Cohen or Ron Darling or Keith, is there?
Dan Campbell’s record with Ben Johnson as his offensive coordinator is 36-15.
His record without Johnson is 11-20-1.
One more thing:
Who other than Campbell himself thought it was a good idea for him to call the plays with the Lions this season?
By the way?
After losing to the Vikings on Christmas, the Lions are now 8-8.
It’s the same record with the Vikings, and they didn’t even have a real quarterback this season.
That room with the CFP committee in it wasn’t exactly a Mensa meeting, but however we got here, it sure looks as if we’ve got four really interesting quarterfinal games.
How’s the culture change going with the Jets?
Asking for Jets fans.
Abdul Carter seems to have finally gotten religion, even it is pretty late in the church service.
If Mike Kafka doesn’t want Jaxson Dart to play, don’t play him at all.
If the Colts had played even a little defense the last couple of weeks, think how much bigger the Philip Rivers story could have been.
I was wondering just what vibe the universe was giving off to Mickey Callaway that made him think we wanted him to weigh in on the moves the Mets have been making?
Does Uncle Steve Cohen honestly think that a casino near Citi Field will make it easier to get to Mets games?
The Aaron Rodgers we saw last Sunday against the Lions?
He was the one the Jets thought they were getting before the Achilles injury.
Nothing has changed in a week for Tyler Kolek.
Kid is still having a moment.
It has become kind of official that the Spurs aren’t afraid of the Thunder.
And it’s starting to look as if the White House is using Liberace’s old decorator.
Finally today:
Happy New Year to all the pros who put out our Sports section at the Daily News every single day, both the editors and writers.
They all continue to play bigger.
It’s an honor to work with them.
