Current New York Mets president of baseball operations and former Milwaukee Brewers general manager David Stearns appeared on Foul Territory and was asked about trading Josh Hader to the San Diego Padres in 2022, then proceeding to miss the playoffs that season. Stearns admitted that he thinks about that move a lot and that it stung.

“As it probably wouldn't surprise you, I've thought about that transaction a lot, I've thought about that decision a lot,” David Stearns said on Foul Territory. “And look, what we were trying to do there I think was thread a needle, right. We were in a spot where we felt like we had a playoff-caliber team. We were also trying to set ourselves up going forward and understood we were probably at the optimal time to get future value back for Josh. We thought we were going to be able to do an adequate job of backfilling after we traded Josh, and clearly we didn't. We made that trade, we were in playoff position, and we ended the year out of playoff position. When you do something like that, it's gonna hurt, and it stings. And frankly it should sting. So I think the intentions there were admirable. It was about extending a window as long as you possibly could. But we didn't execute it well enough. I didn't execute it well enough. And we missed the playoffs.”

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The Brewers acquired Taylor Rogers, Dinelson Lamet, Esteury Ruiz and Robert Gasser from the Padres in the Josh Hader trade. It did not age well for the Brewers, as they faded down the stretch and lost out on the playoffs, as Stearns mentioned.

Now, Stearns is the president of baseball operations with the Mets, and hopes to build up a winning team with Steve Cohen as his owner.