Reese Kaplan -- The 2026 Starting Rotation is Wide Open

Let’s circle back to the David Stearns “run prevention” takeaway from his postseason press conference.  To many people they felt this phrase was a dig at the team’s subpar defense which most certainly could use improvement.  Go down the roster between Juan Soto, Brandon Nimmo, Pete Alonso, Francisco Lindor and Francisco Alvarez.  It is clear that people either have not demonstrated decent glove skills or have seen what they had diminish considerably.

Instead lets today take a look at the other weapon in run prevention.  As often as the club struggled to score runs the fact remains that their pitching was remarkably bad as the team gave away August and September in the pursuit of October baseball.  How bad was it?  The starting pitcher ERA during these 60 days was a godawful 5.65 good for 27th of 30 teams in the major leagues.  For the moment we will push aside concerns about the bullpen and focus on what the Mets could do to improve their rotation.

The 2025 year ending starting pitchers included Sean Manaea, David Peterson, Kodai Senga, Clay Holmes, Nolan McLean, Brandon Sproat and Jonah Tong.  Obviously Senga was demoted to Syracuse due to his inability to retire hitters.  Of this group Holmes was suffering fatigue and his performance level deteriorated though not as badly as that of fellow veterans Manaea and Peterson.

The last minute push from Syracuse included three rookies making their first appearances in the big leagues.  Of the three, only McLean appeared ready to make a consistent and positive impact on the 2026 starting pitching quandary.  His final numbers included 8 starts, a 5-1 record accompanied by a 2.06 ERA, 57 Ks in 48 IP, and a final WHIP of 1.042.  That level of dominance is needed badly by this team and while it’s unlikely he will deliver that dominance for a full season, a starting pitcher capable of a 3.00 ERA is badly needed.

Jonah Tong was the biggest surprise in a bad way.  After being clearly the top pitching prospect in the Mets minor leagues everyone was anxious to see how he’d handle the best of the best hitters when he hit the majors.  Unfortunately it was not a success story.  Over 5 starts he finished with an ERA of 7.71.  It’s not even worth looking at the other numbers.  Now to be fair he was a late arrival to Syracuse after dominating in Binghamton, so he did not have the normal duration of experience at that level before being summoned in the September desperate push for the playoffs.  Pretty much everyone expects he will begin the 2026 season in Syracuse in order to correct whatever went wrong in September.

Then there is the on again/off again Brandon Sproat who had almost played himself out of ascendancy to the major leagues before an extended series of starts in Syracuse where he kicked it into the next gear and showed he could indeed be an asset.  His four starts demonstrated a mixed bag of performance.  He finished with a 4.79 ERA and suffered the same issues with hits and walks that plagued him in the minors.  He’ll likely either be used as trade bait or returned to Syracuse.  For most folks he’s filler for the rotation much like Tylor Megill had been pre injury.

So if you dust off the starting rotation for 2026 it looks like Nolan McLean for sure and perhaps Clay Holmes who might instead be needed in the pen if Edwin Diaz walks.  No one is anxious to see a lot more of Sean Manaea, David Peterson nor Kodai Senga.  That need to fill prospective vacancies in the rotation suggest that the club might be dipping into free agency. 

The top contenders here include Framber Valdez formerly of the Astros, Dylan Cease formerly of the Padres and Ranger Suarez formerly of the Phillies.  There are more high level free agents and many inexpensive gambles but it would seem if the payroll needs to remain flat at best then it will take the departures of Pete Alonso and/or Edwin Diaz to create the budget necessary to buy additional players. 

We could sort through the laundry list of less expensive options such as former Mets Jose Quintana, Steve Matz or Carlos Carrasco, but you kind of suspect they’re looking to embrace the new rather than recycle the old.  Trades can also be made to bring in some younger arms but the issue here is how good and how healthy they would be after coming to the Mets.  Again, David Stearns and company have quite a bit of work to do.