rewrite this title Did David Stearns already tip Mets’ Pete Alonso hand?

Five offseason questions on my mind:

1. How committed is David Stearns to “run prevention”? The Mets president of baseball operations used that term no fewer than a half-dozen times in the first 12 minutes of his end-of-season press conference. The term “Chekhov’s gun” refers to the idea that if you show a rifle mounted on the wall in the first act of a show, that gun better be fired by the final act.

Is “run prevention” Stearns’ Chekhov gun, since he so publicly offered it within 24 hours of the regular season ending? In other words, did Stearns tell us that Pete Alonso is not coming back without ever saying those words? Because we are no longer in the first act, with free agency having begun and Alonso available to all.

Because it is difficult to see how you get to “run prevention” if Alonso returns to first and Juan Soto is in right, though either could (without liking it) be asked to DH regularly. And then what of shortstop Francisco Lindor, who turns 32 on Friday and has six years at $192 million left, and left fielder Brandon Nimmo, who turns 33 in March and has five years at $101.25 million left. Both were down a grade defensively last year and have more potentially deteriorating years left on their contracts. They also both have full no-trade rights.