Outside of their high-priced pursuit of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the Mets were fiscally conservative last offseason. Stearns signed nine players to major-league deals last winter; all but one of them was for one year, and even that one included an opt-out after 2024 sure to be exercised by Sean Manaea.

The Mets are starting with a head of baseball operations, David Stearns, and a manager, Carlos Mendoza, in place. This is just the second time in eight years that they are not embarking on a hiring search to fill one (or both) of those key jobs.