The New York Mets have one of the most free-spending owners in Major League Baseball in Steve Cohen paired with a young, confident president of baseball operations/general manager in David Stearns.
That combination of spending boat loads of money and savvy analytical evaluation creates a dynamic in Queens that should have the Mets in position to contend for years to come.
Even with the losses of star first baseman Pete Alonso and closer Edwin Diaz, the team is in a great place with star players and up-and-coming prospects. Superstar outfielder Juan Soto signed a record-breaking contract last season, worth $765 million over 15 years, and the team still wants to spend money to get better.
While the 2025 season ended with pain, heartbreak and missing the playoffs by a half-game, 2026 will have a different feel. Stearns is focusing on “run prevention,” meaning he is trying to improve the pitching staff and defense, which he has done with a plethora of offseason trades and signings thus far.
Though the offense went cold down the stretch and they lost Alonso’s production, the team is in on the top remaining free agents and could be close to replacing his offensive value soon (Cody Bellinger, Kyle Tucker, Bo Bichette).
At the franchise’s current state, MLB.com’s Will Leitch ranked the Mets as the fourth-most likely team to win a World Series in the next decade.
“It might not feel this way right now, during one of the more sentimentally distressing offseasons in recent Mets memory, but New York is extremely well-positioned moving forward. It still has two perennial MVP candidates to build around in Juan Soto and Francisco Lindor, but it also has a cadre of young hitters coming up through the system to support those cornerstones, not to mention a parade of young pitching, much of which Mets fans got to see down the stretch in 2025,” Leitch wrote Friday.
“The Mets also have an owner who has made it clear he will do whatever it takes to get his team a World Series title, and a general manager who has shown he’ll make the unpopular move in the short-term if it helps his team win in the long-term. Frankly, that’s the opposite of how the club has operated for most of the past three decades, which is why Mets fans should be much more optimistic than they currently are. (Or usually are.)”
The amount of young pitching and offensive talent that will be coming up or already got a taste of MLB last season is exciting. It might not be right away, but in the near future, we could be seeing the Mets hoist the World Series trophy for the first time since 1986.