There is no team more needy than the Mets. Or maybe there is no team that has created more flexibility than the Mets.

However you spin it, David Stearns — as has become his wont — has created a lot of work (or maybe a lot of freedom) for himself.

After an early-offseason bloodletting, the Mets’ 40-man roster is the emptiest in all of baseball, sitting at 28. No other team has fewer than 31 players.

Stearns came in and turned over the coaching group and back half of the roster in a fashion that might look unprecedented, though he himself has done this once before.