alice

co-host of Sports Aren’t Real podcast 🎙️ anti-Stearns Mets fan ⚾️ roll tide ♥️

[alice @itsalicejohnson]

@CookedByGrimace I hate this rhetoric. you can be a fan of the front AND THE BACK of jerseys. sometimes sports fans act like players are disposable. people can be a fan of their favorite actor long after they’re killed off the tv show they first saw them in. people like pete. simple as that.

[alice @itsalicejohnson]

@GzaOnAir @Mets he’s been failing for years. not entirely his fault, he can only manage the team he’s given, but still bad calls left and right. his personality isn’t the problem, it’s his inability to do the job.

[alice @itsalicejohnson]

@Mets 13 under .500. where’s the next trade it’s time to sell

[That’s Baseball, Suzyn @Thats_BB_Suzyn]

Taking off my Yankees hat for a minute to assess the Mets situation.

The Pete Alonso situation captures everything about why David Stearns is not the secret genius we were told he was, and why he is, simply, a terrible GM.

You don’t let a Forever Guy, the franchise leader in HR, walk to another team. At least not without a good reason. And the reasons Stearns gave for not even making an offer to Pete simply don’t hold up. They reveal that he might just be an idiot.

1. “His defense is sub-par.” Sure, but then you signed Bo Bichette to play a position he never played, and he was already a terrible defender at the position he did play. And then you signed a roleplayer to play 1B who hadn’t even played 1B before. So even if you prioritized defense, you had no plan to make that happen.

2. “He won’t age well.” Pete never gets hurt, plays 162 games, and has been the most consistent right handed power hitter in baseball since coming into the league. He’s a lock for 35-45 HR every year with an .800 to .850 OPS. There’s a reason he’s the franchise leader in HR. Homegrown guys like that come along once in a generation.

3. “We didn’t want to hamstring ourselves with a long term contract, especially because we already did that with Lindor and Soto.” Understandable, but the Orioles only signed him through his Age 35 season. That’s a bargain in this day and age. Aaron Judge, Ohtani, Mookie, Vlad Jr., Soto, Trout, Harper, and Machado are all locked up through Age 39 and beyond. If you’re scared of signing an elite 1B to a 5 year deal through Age 35, you shouldn’t be a major league GM.

Simply put, all of Stearns’ reasons were complete BS.

Now I can think of some reasons to keep Pete:

1. Chicks dig the Forever Guy - Win or lose, some fans will always buy tickets to see an elite homegrown player they grew up with. Investing in someone like that is a good business decision. Insurance in case you don’t win. There’s something special about seeing a no-name prospect become a superstar over the course of his rookie year. Fans, especially kids, have been on this journey with Pete since he broke Aaron Judge’s rookie home run record in 2019. Obviously winning matters most. But take this from a Yankees fan. When we were mediocre and in between playoff windows in 2013-2014, we still paid to go see Jeter and Mariano.

2. The Quest for 500 - Pete is on a borderline HOF track. Every HR he would have hit at Citi Field would have been a new record. Unless he gets hurt—and so far he never gets hurt—he had a really good chance to get to 500. Why take that away from fans?

3. The Mets have never had a Forever Guy. Seaver. Straw. Doc. DeGrom. None of those guys stayed with the Mets. Pete not only had a chance to be a face of the franchise, but THE face of the franchise, for decades to come.

Look, I’m not emotionally invested in the Mets. I don’t hate them, even if I don’t root for them. And as a baseball fan, I think every team deserves a homegrown hero, win or lose. I count dozens of Mets fans amongst my family and friends. It’s painful to see what Pete on the Orioles has done to them.

There is certainly an argument to be made for being ruthless, doing whatever it takes to win. But David Stearns didn’t do that either. Instead of being a secret genius, it seems he had no plan at all. Now that they’re a dumpster fire, it doesn’t surprise me that Pete Alonso is the outlet through which fans are venting their frustration.

[alice @itsalicejohnson]

@Thats_BB_Suzyn every single word, yes. perfectly said.

[alice @itsalicejohnson]

@Peterson_IsKing I miss these mets. fun mets who loved the game

[alice @itsalicejohnson]

@fjw208 @PeteTheGreek13 you can’t sign injury prone players like polanco and lrj and be surprised when they’re injured…

[Peter Panagos @PeteTheGreek13]

The Mets David Stearns Timeline: Buckle up. it's a long one. Because I am fucking done with the David Stearns defenders. #LGM

2024: David Stearns takes over a basically ready made roster. He throws a bunch of 1 year contract darts at a wall because he wants to rebuild the core of the team in his identity, so he has no interest in doing anything major. The darts mainly stick (he still only brought up Iglesias and Vientos because his other darts sucked or players got injured). The Mets go on a magical run with the most likeable team since 2015 and get within 2 wins of the World Series. David Stearns masterplan will have to wait.

2025: as a result of 2024, David Stearns is gifted one of the best players in baseball by wonderful owner @StevenACohen2.. David follow this gift up by doing basically nothing else to improve the roster other than begrudgingly signing Pete Alonso to an essential 1 year deal because he cant justify breaking up the core of this team and rebuilding it coming off a NLCS appearance + Juan Soto. Result? The offense performs decently enough for the season, while the starting pitching completely crumbles. Stearns responds by adding exactly zero starting pitchers at the deadline, instead going all in on a bunch of relievers and a corpse CF. The Mets miss the playoffs by 1 game, solely due to Stearns failure to put a starting rotation together + most of his deadline moves completely failing.

2026: Now that the Mets AREN'T coming off a great season, David realizes NOW is the time to start his plan. He lets Alonso and Diaz walk. Trades Nimmo and McNeil. The replacements for ALL these players are either hurt, useless, a free agent next year, or all 3. David Stearns replaced Alonso and Nimmo's 26 homers this year so far with Polanco and Semien's 10 home runs. NOT GREAT. On top of that, remember why we missed the playoffs in 2025? The terrible starting pitching? Stearns reacted to that by bringing in 1 (1!!!!!!) rental starting pitcher who has never pitched outside Milwaukee before. There is ZERO reason, why this lineup could not have had Alonso, Nimmo AND Bichette.

In summation: Going into a year where we just needed to run the lineup back and invest in starting pitching, David Stearns decided to gut the lineup, upset the fanbase, bring in a few mercenaries, and almost completely ignore the only issue he had to fix.

He is an abject failure as the President of Baseball Operations, who has been protected and coddled by the media and podcasters because he's accessible.

He has destroyed this franchise for the sole purpose of wanting to treat the Mets like a GM Mode of MLB The Show and rebuild them in his image. He's a fraud.

Fire him. Today. #LGM

[alice @itsalicejohnson]

I miss buck

[alice @itsalicejohnson]

@TheMetsX eh maybe a little more just for good measure

[alice @itsalicejohnson]

@SNY_Mets under par? y’all looked like you didn’t even know what sport you were playing

[alice @itsalicejohnson]

@SNYtv going from being in awe every postseason game we won in 2024 to THIS in less than two years has to be a record in disappointment. thank you stearns for showing me that hope never should’ve existed with you. in stearns we do not trust.

[alice @itsalicejohnson]

@metsbatflip1 say what you will but this must be SO satisfying for pete. to basically tell stearns he doesn’t know what he’s doing, not only be proven right, but to have the team you loved CHANTING for you?? proves his worth to this org. i’ll miss him forever

[alice @itsalicejohnson]

@FireInEpplerLGM @The7Line which was the whole goal going into the season, what a shock it turned out this way… who ever could’ve seen this coming

[alice @itsalicejohnson]

@The7Line if we all pitch in $100 can we buy the team from steve

[alice @itsalicejohnson]

@SteveGelbs if cohen isn’t on the phone firing stearns right now im disappointed. there’s no reason a marketer in south florida figured out how this season would go after his moves and he couldn’t. this is embarrassing at best.

[alice @itsalicejohnson]

@Hustlediva1 @SNY_Mets @SNYtv this is the most iconic reply!

[alice @itsalicejohnson]

@SNY_Mets did he just watch his first game?

[alice @itsalicejohnson]

@JamesNolanFS all of the pete haters in the replies saying the Os season is over 🤣🤣🤣 mets are 6 WCGB, Os are 2