David Stearns signals that there’s no room for sentiment

David Stearns opened Monday’s Zoom call with a few minutes of effusive praise for Brandon Nimmo, previously known as the longest-tenured, widely admired and immensely popular leftfielder for the New York Mets.

It was basically Nimmo’s Flushing eulogy, a goodbye to the 2011 first-round draft pick who famously said, upon signing his eight-year, $162 million deal, that he’d never have to take off his blue-and-orange jersey ever again.

The choice was his, after all. That’s the point of having no-trade protection built into a contract, and as someone who was around for most of Nimmo’s days, I can confidently say he rarely, if ever, showed up for work at Citi Field without a smile.

That’s not an easy feat when you’re playing for the super-scrutinized Mets. Plenty of people have passed through that Flushing clubhouse with the exact opposite experience. So you could imagine Nimmo’s surprise when Stearns, the president of baseball operations, called Thursday to ask about waiving his no-trade clause as the final hurdle to complete shipping him to the Texas Rangers.

“I was obviously taken aback by that,” Nimmo said.

A few months earlier, during much happier times, owner Steve Cohen had included Nimmo among his “Fab Four” along with fellow franchise cornerstones Francisco Lindor, Pete Alonso and Juan Soto.

In Nimmo’s mind, he was always considered part of the solution — never the problem — and here was his boss of two years targeting him as the first broom job of the Mets’ winter housecleaning.

What could Nimmo possibly say to that? And why would he choose to stay in a place that already had him more than halfway to Texas?

Still, Nimmo took a few nights to sleep on it — his daughter’s birthday was the day after the call — and came to the only logical conclusion.

“They had made it apparent that they felt like the best way to move forward for the Mets was this trade,” he said.

Even after all that Nimmo endured with the Mets during some of the darker periods, that had to be the hardest thing to hear. As the clubhouse’s most reliable spokesman, he often was asked to comment about the team’s lowest points and never ducked from the responsibility despite how personally he took the Mets’ failings as his own.

The last Met to shoulder such weight was the last captain, David Wright, and that’s who came to mind Monday for Nimmo as he talked about his closed tenure in Queens.

“There was a solid chance, if I stayed healthy, if I just kept producing, me and David Wright would have been pretty much the only ones that had started and finished with the Mets,” he said. “And I could’ve had a pretty good chance of having my number in the rafters.”

No longer. Nimmo now shares the Rangers’ clubhouse with Jacob deGrom, another popular Met destined for those rafters before the franchise chose to head in a different direction.

It happens. Sending Nimmo to Texas wasn’t personal. This was a baseball business decision, one that definitely has advantages for the Mets as Stearns embarks on his “run prevention” mission this winter. He swaps out Nimmo’s declining defense in leftfield for a two-time Gold Glove winner in Marcus Semien while shedding Nimmo’s long-term money (five years, $101.25 million) for a shorter commitment (three years, $72M) to Semien.

“I think it’s a recognition that what we did last year wasn’t good enough,” Stearns said. “And running back the exact same group wasn’t the right thing to do. So as we went into this, we believed — and still believe — that we have to be open to anything. That we shouldn’t be in the spot to take anything off the table.”

We agree with Stearns on all that. The Mets entered this offseason with plenty of holes and a fractured relationship with the fan base badly in need of repair. Dumping Nimmo was a bold move but probably the most logical one, as Stearns not only improved his up-the-middle defense but cleared space in the outfield for more upgrades.

Stearns mentioned young prospects such as Carson Benge as potential options, but for the Nimmo trade to truly be a success, he’d be better off reeling in a Cody Bellinger or Kyle Tucker.

Stearns was asked Monday if he believes getting a “top-flight” outfield acquisition is possible in addition to signing Alonso and Edwin Diaz. He didn’t rule it out.

“Payroll space is not unending,” he said. “But I am also very confident that we’re going to have the support we need and certainly the resources we need to put a very good team on the field.”

Based on what happened to Nimmo, you’d have to think — now more than ever — that Stearns isn’t prepared to go overboard for either Alonso or Diaz.

He took a sledgehammer to sentimentality by ditching Nimmo, who was under contract for five more years, so letting popular Mets simply walk away just gets easier from here. And in Alonso’s case, Stearns has shown he’s willing to act on his “run prevention” mantra, so we’d expect those types of moves to continue.

But if Nimmo can be convinced to leave the Mets, how much of a concern is that for those staying behind, or the players being recruited to take his place? Stearns had better polish up that sales pitch for the months ahead.