Gerrit Cole's injury helps explain David Stearns' Mets pitching philosophy

Gerrit Cole's upcoming Tommy John surgery is the latest sign that handing long-term contracts to pitchers is a big risk.

Mar 6, 2025; Tampa, Florida, USA;New York Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole (45) pauses before taking the mound against the Minnesota Twins during the first inning at George M. Steinbrenner Field. Mandatory Credit: Dave Nelson-Imagn Images / Dave Nelson-Imagn Images

Fans of the New York Mets have have a rough spring on the injury front as Frankie Montas and Sean Manaea, two of the team's most important starting pitchers, went down and will not be ready for Opening Day.

Both pitchers are expected back during the season, however, which is more than the New York Yankees can say for ace Gerrit Cole.

Read More: Mets face uphill battle in NL East with rotation injuries

Cole is done for the year thanks to Tommy John surgery, costing the Yankees their ace for the entire 2025 season and, in all likelihood, a portion of 2026. The team had a chance to move on from Cole, who missed the first two-plus months of the 2024 season with elbow trouble, after he opted out of the remainder of his nine-year, $324 million contract but they chose to let Cole undo the opt-out to try winning now.

The time that Cole will miss will undoubtedly harm the Yankees, who are now without one of the best pitchers in baseball in a year they are trying to win a World Series. While the Yankees would argue that Cole's performance in the beginning of the contract (59-28 with a 3.12 ERA in 125 starts, with three All-Star selections and a Cy Young Award in 2023) has been worth the money, the back end of long term pitching deals is inherently risky.

Situations like Cole's injury can help partially explain why Mets' President of Baseball Operations David Stearns has historically avoided giving long-term contracts to starting pitchers. Prior to signing Sean Manaea and Clay Holmes to three-year deals this winter, Stearns had never given a free agent pitcher a contract of more than two years dating back to his tenure with the Milwaukee Brewers.

Stearns tends to operate with a philosophy of mitigating risk, which is why he prefers to offer shorter term deals to starting pitchers on the open market while acquiring starters through other means, such as the draft or trade. Developing pitching is far more cost effective than signing pitching, and is far less risky than handing a pitcher big money only to see him miss time due to injury.

When that situation occurs, that payroll is essentially wasted, even if the pitchers contract is insured like the Yankees did with Cole's deal. Dollars for an injured player still count towards a team's luxury tax payroll, which hurt the Mets in the past when they were trying to navigate the end of David Wright's career.

Stearns did attempt to go long-term with a pitcher two years ago when 25-year old Yoshinobu Yamamoto hit the market, offering him a 12-year, $325 million deal that contained an opt out after five years. Opt-outs are a valuable tool in Stearns' pitching contracts, which he used in deals for Clay Holmes, Montas, and Sean Manaea's original deal from last season; they theoretically allow the Mets to capture the prime years of a free agent pitcher before they test the market again.

Fans wondering why the Mets didn't get involved in the markets for Blake Snell (who got five years and $182 million from the Los Angeles Dodgers), Corbin Burnes (six years, $210 million from Arizona), and Max Fried (eight years, $218 million from the Yankees) can look at Cole's injury as a justification of Stearns' caution. While the aforementioned pitchers would have helped the Mets now, the injury risk would increase significantly as they aged.

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