Derek and the Dominos: Falvey and Gross Help Front Office Pieces Fall Into Place for the Mets

If David Stearns is building the Mets' organization one piece at a time, the past few days have brought a few dominos tumbling into place.

On Tuesday, the Mets removed the interim tag from Andy Green and gave him a three-year contract to remain the team's manager.

Two days later, Stearns added another piece to the front office — actually, make that two.

The first one happens to be named Derek.

Derek Falvey, to be exact.

The second is Kris Gross, who was promoted to Assistant General Manager, Scouting, after spending the past three seasons overseeing the Mets' amateur scouting operation and, more recently, international scouting as well.

No, the Mets haven't suddenly decided to start a rock band at Citi Field. But with Green now locked in as manager, Falvey joining Stearns as Senior Advisor, Baseball Operations, and Gross taking on an expanded role, the Mets are beginning to put some definition to the organization that Stearns is building.

And maybe that's the bigger story here.

This isn't just about three separate announcements. It's about the pieces of the Mets' baseball operation beginning to settle into place — from the dugout to the front office to the scouting department.

And yes, Mets fans, Derek and the Dominos sounds a whole lot better than another front-office press release.

If you are a Mets fan, you probably have one immediate question after Thursday's announcement:

Who is Derek Falvey?

Well, if you were a Minnesota Twins fan for the better part of the last decade, you probably have a complicated answer to that question.

For Mets fans, the better question might be: What exactly is the guy who spent nine years running the Twins' baseball operation bringing to Queens?

As it turns out, Falvey isn't a stranger to the type of baseball world David Stearns knows well.

Their paths crossed years ago in Cleveland, where both began building the résumés that eventually led them to run baseball operations in Minnesota and Milwaukee, respectively.

Now, they're back together in Queens — this time with Stearns calling the shots and Falvey joining him as a trusted voice in the Mets' Baseball Operations department.

The Mets announced Thursday that Falvey has joined the organization as Senior Advisor, Baseball Operations, reporting directly to Stearns and serving as what the club described as a trusted voice across a wide range of baseball operations decisions.

Translation: He isn't coming to Flushing to sit in the corner and alphabetize scouting reports.

He has been in the room.

A lot.

Falvey, 43, spent nine seasons running the Twins' baseball operation, first as Executive Vice President and Chief Baseball Officer from 2016-19 and then as President of Baseball Operations from 2019-25. During that stretch, Minnesota reached the postseason four times, including American League Central titles in 2019, 2020 and 2023 and an American League Wild Card berth in 2017.

And if you want to understand why Steve Cohen, Stearns and the Mets wanted him around, you don't have to look at the Twins' organizational chart.

Falvey arrived in Minnesota after the 2016 Twins went 59-103.

One year later, they were in the postseason.

That's not exactly a five-year rebuilding plan.

The 2017 Twins went 85-77 and became the first team in MLB history to go from 100-plus losses one season to the postseason the next.

And that quick turnaround became the opening chapter of Falvey's Minnesota story.

Then came the transactions.

Some were bold.

Some were brilliant.

Some were painful.

He acquired Kenta Maeda. He turned the Nelson Cruz trade into Joe Ryan. He dealt a first-round pick for Sonny Gray. He sent Luis Arraez to Miami to bring Pablo López to Minnesota. He took another swing by bringing Carlos Correa back after one of the strangest free-agent sagas baseball has ever seen.

And then, in 2025, came the other side of the job: the massive sell-off that sent Correa and a host of other veterans out of Minnesota as the Twins changed direction.

Now, before anybody starts engraving Falvey's name on the Executive of the Year plaque, let's remember something:

No baseball executive gets every transaction right.

Falvey doesn't.

Neither does Stearns.

Neither does Billy Beane.

Neither does Andrew Friedman.

If they did, their transaction logs would be kept in the Baseball Hall of Fame instead of on MLB.com.

Falvey's Minnesota tenure included moves that didn't work as hoped. The 2022 deadline, for example, saw Minnesota make an unusually aggressive push, acquiring Tyler Mahle, Jorge López, Michael Fulmer and Sandy León while giving up a significant amount of prospect capital.

Mahle struggled with injuries.

López didn't become the dominant late-inning force Minnesota envisioned.

But that's baseball.

Before Minnesota, There Was Cleveland — And David Stearns

Here's the part of Thursday's announcement that should make Mets fans especially interested:

Before Stearns was running the Mets and before Falvey was running the Twins, the two were young baseball executives working together in the Cleveland Indians' front office.

Falvey joined Cleveland in November 2007 as a Baseball Operations intern. He was a former Division III pitcher at Trinity College who had earned an economics degree and was starting at the bottom of the baseball-operations ladder.

He kept climbing.

By 2011, Falvey had become Assistant Director of Baseball Operations.

Then, in December of that year, Cleveland made a move that would turn out to be rather important to the future of two Major League franchises.

The Indians named Derek Falvey and David Stearns Directors of Baseball Operations.

Yes, both of them.

Stearns had arrived in Cleveland after spending three years at Major League Baseball's Commissioner's Office. Falvey was promoted from within after four years with the Indians. And the two were given distinctly different areas of responsibility.

Falvey's portfolio centered primarily on player personnel and acquisitions.

Stearns focused on contracts, strategy and analysis.

In other words, the future Mets president and the man who just became his senior advisor were already working together on opposite sides of the same baseball-operations brain.

And it wasn't just Falvey and Stearns.

Cleveland became something of a baseball front-office factory.

Mark Shapiro was running the organization. Chris Antonetti eventually became president. Mike Chernoff became general manager. Stearns went to Houston and later Milwaukee. Falvey eventually went to Minnesota.

The Indians' front office was basically baseball's version of a really good college program.

You went there, learned a bunch of stuff, and eventually somebody hired you to run their team.

Falvey spent nine seasons in Cleveland, eventually becoming assistant general manager in 2016. His responsibilities had expanded well beyond one little corner of the baseball department, including player procurement and development, contracts, advance scouting and working with the Major League coaching staff.

And there is an especially interesting footnote to his departure.

Falvey was hired by Minnesota in October 2016.

But he didn't immediately pack his bags and head to Minneapolis.

He stayed with Cleveland through the end of its postseason run.

That meant Falvey was part of the Indians' front office as Cleveland won the American League pennant and advanced to Game 7 of the World Series against the Chicago Cubs. Cleveland eventually lost that unforgettable Series, 8-7, in 10 innings.

Then Falvey left for Minnesota.

So his final Cleveland season was spent helping build a team that came within one victory of a championship.

And here's the really interesting part for Mets fans:

Stearns knows all of this firsthand.

He doesn't have to read Falvey's résumé.

He lived part of it.

They were colleagues when both were still climbing the baseball-operations ladder. They saw how the Cleveland organization worked, how information moved between scouting, analytics, player development and the Major League club, and how decisions were made.

Nearly two decades later, they've wound up together again.

Only now, instead of being two young executives sharing a Cleveland office, they're helping run the baseball operation of the New York Mets.

Talk about a reunion.

Stearns called Falvey "one of the most respected executives in our sport" and emphasized his experience across the full scope of baseball operations and his familiarity with leading an organization.

That's a pretty good description of what the Mets are adding here.

They're not hiring another general manager.

They're adding another set of eyes.

And those eyes have spent nearly a decade watching a baseball organization evolve from a 103-loss disaster into a four-time postseason club.

And lets not forget Kris Gross.

The other announcement Thursday may not get nearly as many headlines, but it could eventually be just as important.

Kris Gross has been promoted to Assistant General Manager, Scouting.

Gross joined the Mets in 2023 to oversee Amateur Scouting and added International Scouting responsibilities before the 2026 season.

Now he will also contribute to Major League transactions.

Before coming to Queens, Gross spent 11 years with Houston, where he rose from West Coast Supervisor to Director of Amateur Scouting.

The Astros produced 65 Major League players through the Draft during his time on their scouting staff, according to the Mets announcement.

That's not a bad résumé to have when your job is finding the next wave of Mets.

And it fits neatly with the other half of what Stearns appears to be building.

Falvey brings nearly two decades of baseball-operations experience and nine years of running an organization.

Gross brings years of scouting and amateur talent-acquisition experience.

Stearns gets more voices.

The Mets get more baseball experience.

And somewhere, probably in a conference room at Citi Field, a whiteboard just got a whole lot more crowded.

The Mets' announcement Thursday wasn't the kind of transaction that causes fans to run into the street screaming.

There was no superstar holding up a Mets jersey.

No champagne.

No introductory press conference.

But it was significant.

Coupled with the decision two days earlier to remove the interim tag from Andy Green and give him a three-year contract, the Mets have spent the past few days putting some important pieces of their organization into place.

Derek Falvey. Kris Gross. Andy Green.

Different jobs. Different responsibilities. One common goal: building a Mets organization that can sustain success, not simply chase it.

There are still plenty of questions to answer, and plenty of work to be done before the 2027 season arrives.

But for Mets fans, that's part of what makes the next chapter interesting.

The dominos are starting to fall.

And for the first time in a while, there's a pretty good reason to start looking forward to what comes next — not just in 2027, but well beyond it.