David Stearns inherited a strong infrastructure with the Brewers and managed to improve it.

At the time, general manager Doug Melvin, a baseball lifer, had just stepped aside, leaving the job to a 30-year-old Harvard graduate who rose through the Astros front office. It was a Brewers farm system in September 2015 that included names such as Corbin Burnes, Josh Hader, Wily Peralta and Orlando Arcia, among others.

Stearns, who was introduced this week as the Mets’ new president of baseball operations, had a plan: Let the people Melvin hired continue in their roles, but focus on tweaking the process for evaluating young talent. One key member of the Mets front office, general manager Billy Eppler, will not be returning — he resigned Thursday amid an MLB investigation into improper use of the injured list.

“I credit David for this, he didn’t bring in a lot of people,” said a major league official who worked with Stearns in Milwaukee. “He did add people and did change the philosophy on certain things — obviously everybody has their slant — but I think just more than anything it was a pivot in the front office toward a more analytical and statistical approach.”

Stearns is arriving to an organization that has increased its analytical tools exponentially in the three years Steve Cohen has owned the team. Now, as one Mets official recently surmised, it might be as much about “trimming the fat” and distilling information as about unearthing new statistics.

But early in Stearns’ Milwaukee tenure, much of the technology and information was new. And few had better ideas on how to employ both than Stearns, who had worked under Jeff Luhnow, the architect of the Astros teams that became perennial World Series contenders.

“We were doing a lot of statistical stuff and we were building systems, they were in process under [Melvin] and I think David just ramped everything up,” the former Brewers official said. “[Stearns] was coming from Houston, so he knew the importance of having everything maybe in one database, in one collective singular area where he could have more of his objective stuff. We probably added some technology. We got into the business of measuring things and trying to make decisions off that probably a little quicker than we were previously.”

The Brewers reached the postseason four straight seasons under Stearns beginning in 2018. This season, Stearns moved into an advisory role with the team.

Stearns’ chief objective will remain the same with the Mets as in Milwaukee: Build a farm system that consistently replenishes. It starts with pitching, a position at which the Mets are lacking in elite talent in the minor leagues.

“For us to be successful in Milwaukee, we had to have young controllable starting pitching because we weren’t going to be able to get it on the free-agent market,” the former Brewers official said. “It was a zero-sum game doing that, so that was the focus. That is where you see the Burnes, [Brandon] Woodruff, Freddy Peralta … but you really have to stay committed to the draft. You have to stay committed to the development process and you have to stay on it. You can’t dabble. The free-agent market is not a place you want to end up trying to do everything.”

Stearns has a five-year contract worth an approximate $50 million, giving him a lengthy runway.

“He has a capacity as good or better than anybody I’ve been around to digest information from a lot of different sources,” the former Brewers official said. “Some of them are proprietary sources. Some of it is the fact he grew up in New York and just understands the game. He’s pretty well-versed in the game beyond what people have given him credit for. He knows the game.”

For Pete’s take

Pete Alonso is following the Brandon Nimmo playbook.

As he prepared to enter his free-agent walk year, Nimmo severed ties with representatives from CAA and hired Scott Boras as his new agent. Nimmo last offseason received an eight-year contract worth $162 million for a return to the Mets.

Now it’s Alonso — as reported by The Post’s Jon Heyman — turning to Boras as he enters his final year before free agency.

Boras and Steve Cohen have enjoyed a good working relationship, but it also should be noted that Boras’ last negotiations with the Mets turned messy.

That was last January, when the Mets decided it wasn’t worth the risk in signing Carlos Correa to the 12-year contract worth $315 million that had been offered because of physical concerns.

After the situation played out — Correa ultimately returned to the Twins on a six-year deal worth $200 million — Boras questioned the Mets’ methodology in seeking medical opinions.

Boras serves as Michael Conforto’s representative, and that relationship helped push Nimmo in the super-agent’s direction. The baton now has been passed to Alonso, who likely noticed Nimmo’s deal last winter was richer than most expected.

The Mets manager’s home ‘plate’

In a column this week we outlined why experience should be heavily weighed when evaluating candidates for an opening as high-profile and pressurized as Mets manager.

Terry Collins survived to become the longest-tenured manager in franchise history (seven seasons), and often has cited his previous MLB managing experience as a factor.

After that column was written, we spoke to Collins.

“If you haven’t managed, you don’t know all the things that cross your plate as a manager,” Collins said. “In New York, there’s even more. The relationship the manager has to have with [reporters] to give five or 10 minutes when they want it, that’s just part of the program and when you’ve never done it, there are just so many other things that you think about, you really have to know how to divide your time.”

Collins cited the marketing and community relations duties that a New York manager faces as factors that contribute to the sweeping nature of the job.

Buck going from goodbye to Halo?

Buck Showalter is again interested in the Angels’ managerial vacancy (he was a candidate for the job before the 2020 season, but got bypassed for Joe Maddon).

The Angels’ job isn’t deemed particularly attractive within the industry — GM Perry Minasian will be entering the final year of his contract — but the 67-year-old Showalter has indicated he wants to continue managing.