David Stearns acknowledges disappointing reality of Mets trade deadline additions

David Stearns acknowledged a fact with which every Mets fan agrees: Join Post Sports+ for exciting subscriber-only features, including real-time texting with Mike Puma about the inside buzz on the Mets.Through a month and a half, his trade deadline moves have not worked out.The Mets president of baseball operations, while providing the caveat that he is pleased with the “process” that led to the team’s decision-making on July 31, nonetheless said he “absolutely” would have handled the trade deadline differently if he knew how the late season would play out.“We did not play well during the month of August, and frankly at this point through September,” Stearns said before the Mets opened a series with the Padres at Citi Field on Tuesday.

“We’ve had various segments of our team that haven’t performed to the level that we certainly anticipated as we approached the trade deadline.“And had I had that knowledge going in, yes, I would have changed what we did.”What the Mets did: Theoretically bulked up their bullpen in acquiring Ryan Helsley, Tyler Rogers and Gregory Soto, plus theoretically finding their everyday center fielder in Cedric Mullins.What the Mets did not do: Turn those theoreticals into realities for a trade-deadline haul that largely has struggled, or add rotation help to a team that has needed some.Since the start of August and through Monday, the Mets rotation had logged the ninth-fewest innings in the majors with a 5.40 ERA that was sixth worst.Kodai Senga fell apart to the point he accepted a demotion to Triple-A Syracuse, and Sean Manaea fell apart to the point he served as a bulk reliever behind Clay Holmes (who had not been able to pitch deep into games) on Tuesday.

David Peterson has a 6.53 ERA after the trade deadline.The Mets now are relying upon three top prospects, Nolan McLean and Brandon Sproat immediate contributors while Jonah Tong could not survive the first inning in his most recent outing.“We understand we’r...