Why Mets relying on returning players to restore their defense

The Mets were an eyesore defensively for much of last season, leading to president of baseball operations David Stearns’ decree that run prevention — encompassing pitching and defense — would be the focal point for 2026.

But the reality is, only so much defensive improvement can be implemented externally. Juan Soto isn’t going anywhere, and Francisco Lindor and Brandon Nimmo most likely aren’t going anywhere. There are only so many levers Stearns can pull in an attempt to improve the club’s defense.

Stearns revealed at the general managers’ meetings this week that he’s already spoken to much of the veteran core about the need for better defense. His message has essentially been that such improvement can’t be considered merely a luxury.

“The first thing is the recognition [defense] is as important as offense,” Stearns said. “We have a tendency in this game — it’s not just the Mets, it’s everywhere, because offense is much easier to see and scoring runs is so much easier seen, in some ways much more easier to measure than preventing runs, especially defensively — that it becomes, ‘We need to focus much of our training time and efforts and energy on how can I get better offensively.’ And at times we forget about the other side of the ball.