On a still night in February, seven weeks before opening day, a crowd gathered at Citi Field to meet the newest Met.

Inside the Piazza 31 Club, a sprawling event space tucked within the stadium, the team was fêting current and prospective season ticket holders with beer, wine, and a buffet of ballpark staples such as hot dogs and jumbo pretzels. There was a raffle planned for autographed memorabilia, most notably a jersey signed by the beloved Mets slugger Pete Alonso. “You do have to be here to win,” the emcee announced to the 200 or so people in attendance, most of them sporting Mets apparel of their own.

They weren’t just there for the free food. The main draw of the evening was David Stearns, the franchise’s first ever president of baseball operations, who was on hand for a Q and A with SNY’s Michelle Margaux. For Stearns, a native of the Upper East Side and a die-hard Mets fan since childhood, the new job is a homecoming; at his introductory press conference in October, he recalled sneaking into Shea Stadium when he was 13. It’s also a full circle moment. Stearns interned for the Mets in 2008, not long after graduating from Harvard, representing his first big break with a major league team.

Now 39, Stearns already qualifies as a front office veteran. Following stints in Cleveland and Houston, he spent the last eight years with the Milwaukee Brewers, first serving as the team’s general manager, before moving into an advisory role. In going from Milwaukee to New York, Stearns is making a leap from the smallest market in Major League Baseball to the largest—and from a team with a payroll that ranks near the bottom third to one that has piled up records for spending. At the Q and A, Stearns told Margaux there is a different level of “intensity” in New York, where both success and failure are more amplified. “When we win we’re going to feel that more,” he said, “And when we lose, we’re going to feel that more.”

But the more of the New York experience also extends to the resources at his disposal. In Milwaukee, Stearns said, “You’re shopping in the bargain aisle,” whereas the Mets have access to “every aisle of the supermarket.”

“We have resources that I didn’t have in Milwaukee, and that is a massive advantage,” Stearns said. “It allows us to do things that other organizations can’t do, and Steve has demonstrated a willingness to do that. We’re certainly going to do that again in the future when the time is right.”

Steve, in this case, would be Steve Cohen, the super-rich hedge fund manager who bought the Mets in 2020 for $2.4 billion, a record price for a baseball club. Cohen’s willingness to do what other organizations can’t do, as Stearns put it, is at least partly due to the fact that Cohen has more money than every other big league owner. (His net worth, per Bloomberg, stands at $13.9 billion.) Since Cohen took over, the Mets have splashed an extraordinary amount of money on player contracts. The team finished last season with a payroll of $374.7 million, shattering the previous high of $291.1 million set by the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2015. Additionally, the Mets were hit with a nearly $101 million luxury tax—also known as the “Cohen tax.”

But that enormous outlay has not turned the Mets into a perennial contender. The highlight of the Cohen era—the team’s 101-win season in 2022—was sandwiched between 77- and 75-win campaigns in 2021 and 2023, making the first three years of his ownership look a lot like the franchise’s history in miniature: a blip of contention surrounded by mediocrity. Since their inaugural season in 1962, the Mets have qualified for the postseason in consecutive years only twice—in 1999 and 2000, then again in 2015 and 2016. Despite winning two World Series titles, their legacy is one mostly of futility and flops. Last season typified the Mets experience; the team entered with pennant aspirations but were 18.5 games out of first by the end of June. Worse, it felt like the momentum generated by Cohen’s takeover had petered out. After buying the team, he said he would be “slightly disappointed” if the Mets failed to win a World Series within three to five years.

Now entering year four, Cohen has recalibrated his approach. An urgency to win now has given way to an emphasis on “sustainable success,” the operative phrase around Flushing since Stearns was hired. The blockbuster signings of previous winters were replaced by cheap, short-term deals this offseason, while the Mets continue to nurture their burgeoning farm system. “Him and I have talked many times about being able to adapt or die,” Mets outfielder Brandon Nimmo said of Cohen. “That’s what you have to be willing to do in the business that he comes from and also in baseball. Things move quickly.” The team is not calling this season a rebuild, but Stearns, empowered by Cohen, has carved out what he describes as a “multiyear plan to compete for championships regularly.” At the Q and A, Stearns said he envisions the Mets becoming a model franchise, not unlike what the San Antonio Spurs or New England Patriots once were. He told Margaux that his goal is for fans of other teams to be “kind of jealous” of the Mets.

The fans in attendance, more experienced in getting roasted by their rivals, laughed.

Steve Cohen’s massive spending endeared him to the Mets faithful, who had watched the franchise languish under the miserly ownership of the Wilpon family. Fans dubbed him “Uncle Steve,” delighting as he promised to run the Mets with a budget worthy of a “major-market team.” He made his first splash just two months after buying the club when he acquired all-star Francisco Lindor and then signed him to a 10-year $341 million contract, a record deal for a shortstop.

The historic spending didn’t stop there. Cohen signed ace Max Scherzer in 2021 to a three-year deal worth a record average annual salary of $43.33 million. The following year, on the heels of the 101-win season, the Mets re-signed their electrifying relief pitcher Edwin Díaz to a five-year $102 million extension, the largest deal ever for a closer, before landing reigning Cy Young winner Justin Verlander to pair with Scherzer at the top of the rotation.

Díaz’s freak season-ending injury while celebrating a victory by Puerto Rico in the 2023 World Baseball Classic cast a pall over last year’s Mets team, serving as a grim omen for the disappointment that followed. “As soon as I got hurt,” Díaz recalled, “I knew I wouldn’t be able to help my team.” Lindor, who played with Díaz on Puerto Rico’s team, called it “one of the toughest nights of 2023,” but he remains bullish on the team’s outlook.

“I signed up for this,” Lindor told me. “I signed up for the long term. I signed up to represent the New York Mets in the good times and bad times, and to accomplish that goal we all have. It don’t matter how many years it takes. Obviously, we want to get it done sooner rather than later. But I see it. I see the vision. I saw the vision from day one.”

The Mets still have a mammoth payroll in 2024, in part because the team owes more than $46 million this year to Scherzer and Verlander, both of whom were traded in the middle of last season for top-tier prospects, including Luisangel Acuña, the younger brother of Braves superstar Ronald Acuña. And the team made an aggressive pitch this winter for the heralded Japanese pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who eventually signed with the Dodgers for a 12-year $325 million contract.

Perhaps most consequentially, the Mets brought in Carlos Mendoza, previously the Yankees’ bench coach, to replace Buck Showalter as manager. “When you have an owner that is willing to do whatever it takes to put a really good product on the field, I think that goes a long way,” Mendoza said of his new boss.

But overall, this offseason was by far the quietest of Cohen’s tenure. The Mets’ biggest signing was a two-year deal worth $28 million with the veteran pitcher Sean Manaea. None of the other free agents who signed with the team, including slugger J.D. Martinez, a key acquisition made just a week out from Opening Day, were given more than a one-year contract. 

“I think it was important, for sustainability, that we change our philosophy and that’s what I think is going to work for the team over the long run,” Cohen told me. “We may not sign as many free agents. We may not ‘win the offseason,’ but I’d rather win more games during the season than the offseason.”

Stearns believes that Cohen’s spending sprees demonstrated that he is “willing to invest in this team at the top of the market when the opportunity is right.” Now, Stearns said, the smart move is to embrace the Mets’ youth.

“This organization had a couple of back-to-back, very aggressive offseasons, bringing in some very noteworthy players,” Stearns said. “I’ve come in and determined in consultation with Steve that we have to continue to allow this young core of players that’s emerging to gain time at the major league level.” (Youngsters Francisco Álvarez and Brett Baty are expected to get significant playing time in 2024.)

All of that is fine by Cohen, who is suddenly preaching the gospel of frugality. “It’s not my goal to spend this type of money forever because it’s uneconomic,” Cohen said. “Ultimately, something that’s uneconomic can’t last.”

In Cohen’s telling, the big spending of the previous offseasons was a “bridge until our farm system started producing better players.” He said the Mets’ farm system was “weak” when he took over from the Wilpons, but it has been replenished with prospects acquired in a slew of trades last year after the team fell out of contention. That, Cohen is now convinced, is the best way to construct a contender. “Building a team just through free agency,” he said, “is a fool’s errand.”

“I look forward to the day when we have younger players. They’re cheaper. They get injured less,” Cohen said. “When you’re in free agency, you’re fighting the aging curve. You’re signing players in their 30s typically. The aging curve is pretty well established over time. As they age, players’ performance potentially goes down, and yet you’re still paying a very steep price.”

Cohen’s belt-tightening may not last through the next offseason, when Alonso is slated to become a free agent. A homegrown all-star, Alonso is the most popular player on the team and one of the most productive power hitters in all of baseball. He is represented by the superagent Scott Boras, who is known to have his clients test free agency to maximize their value. Cohen said he hopes to re-sign Alonso under “a contract that is good for the team, and good for him.”

“I think it takes two to tango, right?” Cohen said. “It’s hard to know where their heads are at. We’ll deal with this at the end of the season. ” He has been here before. Nimmo tested the free agency waters in 2022, only to eventually re-sign with the Mets. Cohen said he is a “big supporter” of players hitting the market.

“If I were him, I’d want to go out and maximize my earnings potential,” he said of Alonso. “This is his big contract.”

In the meantime, Cohen isn’t writing off the upcoming season. Expectations are decidedly lower for the Mets than they were at this time a year ago, with most sportsbooks setting their win total at around 80 or 81. But MLB’s expanded postseason has invited even more volatility come October, opening the door for a team with only 80-odd wins to go on a deep run. Last year’s World Series featured two wild card teams, the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks. The Mets believe they are postseason-caliber, which by definition means they have a shot.

“I mean, Arizona got in last year with 84 wins,” Cohen said. “I think we’re going to surprise people this year. I think we’re better than people think.”

David Stearns is a generational outlier. While baseball’s popularity has waned among millennials, he is the rare sub-40-year-old who talks about the game like your grandfather might have. Stearns “grew up in a National League family,” starting with his own grandpa, who was a fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers. “When the Dodgers left, he remained loyal to National League baseball,” Stearns told me. “When the Mets came, he adopted them as his National League team.”

He also broke the mold at Harvard, where his peers in the political science department were preparing for law school or a career in government. A prolific sportswriter for The Crimson, Stearns always knew he was destined for the big leagues. In a 2005 column, Stearns effectively called his shot, profiling a trio of alums who had all landed jobs in major league front offices.

“This is the story of the growing number of Ivy League graduates who, faced with all the expectations of wealth and success that come with the label and the degree, chose to never give up on their dreams,” he wrote at the time. “They’re proving that the ‘real world’ does include baseball.”

Stearns laughed when I brought that up, but he acknowledged that the column had telegraphed his career.

“I followed a path that was very different from many of my classmates,” Stearns said. “There were certainly times where I questioned whether I could get a foothold in the industry, but there was never a time where something else seemed more important to me.”

I met Stearns on the final day of January in a large break room inside Citi Field, where other Mets employees took phone calls and chatted over herbal tea. We sat at a table overlooking the proposed site of a new stadium for the Major League Soccer team New York City FC, while Stearns, wearing his uniform of a quarter-zip pullover with slacks, explained that his family was “almost in New York.” His wife was still in Milwaukee with their five-year-old daughter and two-and-a-half-year-old son, with Stearns commuting weekly between the two cities until the family closes on their house in Westchester this month.

In Stearns’ eight seasons working in Milwaukee, the Brewers made the playoffs five times and won three division titles, the type of consistency that he wants to bring to the Mets. But he also believes that “every organization needs to have its own identity.”

“We have to create the Mets’ identity and the Mets’ way of consistently winning,” he said.

Stearns is shaping that identity with the personnel he is bringing in, placing a premium on individuals whom he believes can handle the cauldron of New York. He knows the city can be unforgiving, even for a native son, but he thinks his familiarity could still come in handy.

“I believe and I’m hopeful that since I grew up here, and I understand this town a little bit and I understand the media environment in this town, that I’ll be able to handle those added elements as well as possible,” he said.

Stearns may never be as warmly received as he was at the Q and A, where the crowd served him generous helpings of laughs and applause. I noticed a group of fans, decked out in Mets gear, who nodded vigorously just about every time Stearns spoke.

One of them was Keith Diaz, a Brooklyn native who told me he was named after Mets great Keith Hernandez. What did he think of Stearns, I asked.

“Very, very strong,” Diaz said. “He earned that title. It wasn’t given to him.”

Diaz was there with Antonio Rodriguez, who grew up in Jamaica, Queens but was raised by Yankee fans. The only Mets fan in his family, Rodriguez has collected some dreary memories, none worse than the 2000 World Series—“the Subway Series”—when the Yankees beat their less-acclaimed crosstown rivals in five. “That made me cry when I was a child,” he said.

But on this winter night, Rodriguez was upbeat. He said that Cohen has been “amazing” since buying the team and that the restrained offseason showed “how much he has matured as an owner.” The Mets, Rodriguez predicts, will be a wild card team “with the upside being a pennant.”

When I said that he seemed unusually positive for a Mets fan, he shrugged.

“If you go into every season being a pessimist,” Rodriguez said, “what’s the point of watching baseball?”