How the Mets can rebuild around Juan Soto in 5 simple steps

When the New York Mets signed Juan Soto, it felt like a seminal moment for the franchise. Adding Soto to a team that had just made a NLCS appearance months prior felt like it would lead to a long run of Mets dominance, unlike any in the history of the franchise. This has not happened at all.

Despite holding the best record in baseball in mid-June of Soto's first year in Queens, the Mets collapsed in the second half and missed the playoffs entirely. This season has gone even worse after a massive offseason overhaul, as the Mets enter Thursday's action with a 33-41 record, the third-worst mark in the NL. While they aren't fully out of the Wild Card hunt, the odds of them getting in are slim. Soto isn't to blame for any of this. David Stearns is the one who needs to figure out how to get the Mets back on track. These steps could help get them where they need to be with Soto.

Mets should wave the white flag on 2026

I'm a Mets fan. The last thing I want to see them do is sell at the trade deadline. It's hard to see an alternative, though. From an objective lens, while this team is certainly better than their record shows (they've been a winning team since the end of April), and while Francisco Lindor's looming return should help, the hole just feels too deep for them to dig out of.

A 5.5 game deficit in the Wild Card hunt isn't insurmountable by any means, but what makes the task of getting to the playoffs incredibly challenging is the requirement of jumping so many teams in the standings. Again, the Mets have the third-worst record in the NL. That means they have to pass seven teams just to squeak into the third Wild Card spot. Even if they were to do that, does anybody really think this team can beat the likes of the Dodgers and Braves in the NL playoffs?

Selling in what should be a seller's market is the likely and ideal path forward for this team. With veterans on expiring contracts like Freddy Peralta, Brooks Raley, A.J. Minter and even others not on expiring contracts worth dangling, the Mets can receive a nice haul of young players in an effort to win in 2027 and beyond.

Surround Juan Soto with more potent bats

I was completely fine with David Stearns choosing to let Pete Alonso go, rather than give him the massive five-year deal the Baltimore Orioles did. I was not fine with the Alonso replacement being Bo Bichette. Don't get me wrong, Bichette was a phenomenal player with the Toronto Blue Jays and he's been the Mets' best player of late after a brutal start, but he has never been a slugger. He can hit 20 home runs, but Alonso has been one of the league's premier sluggers ever since he debuted in 2019. The goal should've been to sign Bichette and a big power bat.

The result is the Mets ranking towards the bottom of the league in home runs, extra-base hits, OPS and runs scored. Lindor's injury has taken a big bat away for most of the season, and that shouldn't be ignored, but even with Lindor, this offense was not good enough.

Stearns doesn't have to give an older first baseman a five-year deal, but he does need to find a way to get more big bats into this lineup.

Don't take too many injury risks

I understood the Jorge Polanco and Luis Robert Jr. additions. Polanco was coming off a ridiculously good year with the Seattle Mariners, and getting a player of Robert's ceiling for practically nothing like the Mets did made a lot of sense. There was a world in which these moves panned out. One thing both of these players both had in common, though, in addition to up-and-down careers, was an extensive injury history. Sure enough, neither Polanco nor Robert has played a single game since April 26 due to injury, and neither player has a clear timeline to return.

It's one thing to take risks on injury-prone players, but it's another to expect both of them to play integral roles and not plan for them to suffer injuries. Polanco and Robert hit fourth and fifth, respectively, in New York's Opening Day lineup. They were supposed to be key contributors.

Polanco's injury forced the Mets to play Mark Vientos regularly at first base for a while until Jared Young returned from the IL, and that did not go well. Robert's injury resulted in Tyrone Taylor and MJ Melendez getting more run than they should have before they determined AJ Ewing was big-league ready. These injuries, combined with the Mets' lack of foresight, hurt the team dearly.

Be willing to splurge for Tarik Skubal (or a different ace)

Like it or not, David Stearns does not believe in paying top dollar to starting pitchers. I can understand it to an extent, as many starting pitcher contracts are outrageous and age poorly (largely due to injuries). This is not always the case when it comes to the best of the best, though. Stearns willingly went to $325 million in the Yoshinobu Yamamoto sweepstakes, only for the right-hander to spurn the Mets for the Dodgers. Tarik Skubal is older than Yamamoto was at the time, and the fact that he's coming off an elbow injury is a bit scary, but there's no question that he is a needle-mover.

He's a needle-mover that the Mets should be pursuing. No disrespect to Freddy Peralta, but is he really good enough to lead a rotation of a World Series contender? If the Mets are outbid or unwilling to pursue Skubal, trading for an ace feels like a must.

Their starting pitching has been too inconsistent and too unreliable in the Stearns era to walk away from the 2027 offseason without a legitimate ace, whether it's Skubal or someone else.

Cut your losses with underperforming players

Another thing Stearns is known to do is stick with guys he believes can turn it around even if overwhelming recent evidence suggests otherwise. He might be right in the case of Sean Manaea, who looked like a shell of his 2024 self before pitching well over the past month. He's proven to be wrong about many other players, though.

Mark Vientos broke out in 2024, but has been a negative since. Brett Baty had a strong second half in 2025, but hasn't been good otherwise. Kodai Senga and David Peterson pitched well in the first half of 2025, but haven't been any good since.

I can understand not wanting to move players when their values aren't at their highest, but how much longer can the Mets wait on these guys to maybe show signs of life? At some point, you need to cut your losses and try something else. Stearns was willing to let players who played well like Alonso, Brandon Nimmo, Edwin Diaz and Jeff McNeil go, but his commitment to players who have struggled has been tough to understand. Perhaps this offseason will lead to some action.

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