Juan Soto discusses Mets’ failure despite lofty expectations for 2025
After the Mets were eliminated from playoff contention on the season’s final day, Juan Soto discussed what went wrong on Sept. 28, 2025, in Miami.
Members of the Mets organization might one day look at the failures of the 2025 season as a driving force for future sustained success.
The club entered the campaign with lofty goals on the heels of an appearance in the National League Championship Series and adding superstar outfielder Juan Soto on a record $765 million deal. Despite the front office’s financial commitment, the Mets fell woefully short of expectations when they faded over the final four months and missed the playoffs.
Now, president of baseball operations David Stearns has the ultimate task of picking up the pieces and steering the decisions to help erase that sting. The shortcomings of 2025 will serve as education for the next chapter in Mets baseball.
“It provides a great opportunity for reflection, evaluation, post-mortems, all of that, and I do think we came out of that with some very distinct and notable lessons,” Stearns told reporters on Tuesday at Major League Baseball’s General Managers’ Meetings in Las Vegas. “I think we’re going to keep those distinct and notable lessons internal, but I do think it’s going to help us all be better going forward and likely influence how we go through every stage of the player acquisition process, whether that’s offseason, spring training, trade deadline.”
Stearns’ task begins with sifting through the current roster and pool of his club’s free agents and those available across the league to mold next season’s team.
As Stearns and the Mets venture meticulously toward the 2026 campaign, here are three pressing topics the president discussed about the state of the team:
With Pete Alonso future in flux, David Stearns keeps harping defense
With two of the biggest pillars of the Mets success on unsteady ground, Stearns remained steadfast in his fondness for Pete Alonso and Edwin Diaz, who both opted out of their contracts after the 2025 season.
“They’ve been great representatives of the organization. We’d love to have them both back,” Stearns said. “At this stage of the offseason, it’s really tough to predict any outcomes but certainly we’d love to have both of those guys back.”
One clear emphasis for the Mets heading into the offseason is cleaning up defense that Stearns deemed that “wasn’t close to good enough” down the stretch in the final two months of the season. While Alonso captured his first Silver Slugger Award, his one flaw is inconsistent defense after he posted a -9 outs above average last season and bringing him back to man first base could feasibly run counter to those intentions.
“I think part of improving our defense in particular is having some of our players who were with us last year play better defense — that is going to be essential,” Stearns said. “I’ve talked to some of our players about this already. This is going to be an emphasis of ours throughout the offseason into spring training into the season. Sure, we would expect some new players on our team somewhere around the diamond, that’s natural in an offseason, but we’re going to need our current group of players to play better defense.”
That is one of the major reasons that the Mets brought in Kai Correa as their bench coach under Carlos Mendoza.
“Kai comes to us as really one of the best defensive coaching minds in the game,” Stearns said. Someone who has established a reputation from people he’s worked with, players he’s coached, repeatedly as innovative. He can really move teams and organizations forward on that side of the ball.”
Bullpen is an emphasis, with or without Edwin Diaz
Diaz opted out of his final two seasons of his five-year deal, valued at $37 million, leaving a potential massive void for the Mets to fill heading into offseason.
Last season, Diaz converted 28 of his 31 save opportunities while posting a 1.63 ERA and striking out 98 batters in 66â…“ innings.
Diaz might be the ultimate prize free agent reliever, complicated by the Mets extending the $22 million qualifying offer to him, and he’s far from the only Mets bullpen arm to hit the market. Ryne Stanek, Tyler Rogers, Gregory Soto and Ryan Helsley are all also free agents this winter.
That means Stearns has a large task to retool the back end of his bullpen, with or without Diaz back in the mix.
“You never know exactly how the back end of your bullpen is going to take shape, but I would certainly imagine over the course of the offseason we’re going to add to our bullpen,” Stearns said. “We have plenty of vacancies there and I think we’ll have the opportunity to improve that area.”
Brett Baty earned some security in 2025
The Mets headed into the 2025 season under the impression that Mark Vientos had grabbed hold of the third-base spot following a stellar rise one season earlier, including a heroic playoff performance.
But a disappointing year followed for Vientos, who posted a .702 OPS and displayed shaky defense at the hot corner. Stearns is hoping that rough campaign can serve as motivation.
The one player who took advantage of that downturn was Brett Baty, who earned regular time at third base late in the season, finishing with a .254/.313/.435 slash line with 18 home runs, 50 RBI and 53 runs. He had a .866 OPS over the final two months of the season while showcasing a refined glove between third and second base.
That caught the attention of the Mets front office. Stearns said he believes Baty will see “significant time” at third base heading into 2026.
“Probably premature in mid-November for me to outline exactly how playing time is going to be allocated, but Brett did a really nice job,” Stearns said. “He earned more an more opportunity as the year went on. I think he’s going to continue to get that.”
Carson Benge will compete for an MLB spot
Another area of need for the Mets, after the acquisitions of Jose Siri and Cedric Mullins failed to live up to the hype over the course of 2025, is center field.
Tyrone Taylor remains a defensive stalwart in the heart of the outfield but possesses a streaky bat. The notable outfield void could open the door for one of the Mets’ prospects, namely Carson Benge, who was the Mets’ Minor League Player of the Year in 2025.
“I think Tyrone Taylor has proven he can play out there at a high level defensively,” Stearns said. “Carson Benge is going to come into spring training with a chance to make our team and we’ll see where the offseason takes us beyond that.”
Benge, the Mets’ No. 2 prospect and MLB’s No. 21 prospect according to MLB Pipeline, tore up Double A with a .978 OPS including eight home runs, 23 RBI and 28 doubles before posting a .583 OPS in 24 games with Triple-A Syracuse down the stretch.
Kodai Senga part of Mets’ rotation plans
By the end of Kodai Senga’s rookie season in 2023, he could be viewed as the ace of the Mets’ staff. But injury-riddled and inconsistent performances over the last two seasons have cast a shadow over Senga’s future.
After missing the majority of the 2024 season with shoulder and calf injuries, Senga was off to a strong start last season before a hamstring injury sidelined him for a month. After opening with a 1.47 ERA in his first 13 starts, Senga allowed 26 earned runs in his final 39â…” innings down the stretch and was relegated to Triple A to try and regain his form.
At the end of the season, Senga said he felt as though he could not get his body back in sync.
But Senga’s potential when he’s at the top of his game continues to entice the Mets decision-makers. After all, he did strike out 202 batters during his rookie season. For now, that will earn Senga another look in the rotation.
“I think right now we view Senga as part of our rotation,” Stearns said. “He’s proven at the major league level that he can have really good years and clearly at times the last two years have been struggles for him. But the talent is there, the desire is certainly there to have a bounce-back year, and we’re going to give him every opportunity to do that.”