Well, it’s that time of year when the main December holidays have come and gone. Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah or begins today with the seven days of Kwanzaa, it gets people reflective about the good, the bad and the ugly of the current year closing out and the new year about to begin. So too it is for Mets fans about the team they’ve come to love, hate and inspire the consumption of alarming amounts of adult beverages trying to understand.
We won’t dwell on the ponderous number of departures, oddball trades and the unclear path going forward. The New York Post, among others, declared that this 2026 team is going to be the first one truly adhering to the David Stearns vision for the future. He’s expunged inherited players and opens up the opportunity to shape what he feels is the right direction to prepare for a future winning direction for the team.
So without any more fanfare, let’s reiterate the things that still need to be done (one area at a time):
The David Stearns move for Sean Manaea in 2024 looked like a winning gamble. He finished that season healthy and finished that playoff bound year going 12-6 with a highly respectable 3.47 ERA. For a net cost of $12 million after getting the Giants’ $2.5 million payment, that looked indeed like Stearns made a winning pick.
Then came 2025 when injuries and ineffectiveness reminded people why Manaea has never been considered a top major league pitcher. Over the course of 12 starts he went 2-4 with a 5.64 ERA. He was paid $25 million for that effort, but not just for this past horrific season. The Mets are on the hook for that same salary for 2026 and 2027 as well. Clearly not every move is one for celebration.
Then there is David Peterson who has long been on the periphery of middle rotation competency but has had both health problems and inconsistency sabotaging his overall value. There are times he’s looked absolutely dominant but more often he sputters and ends the year with an over 4.00 ERA (4.12 for his six year career).
As he enters his age 30 season the bloom may indeed be off the rose. As 4th or 5th starter perhaps he’s a good option but at minimal salary by MLB standards he may wind up more valuabe as a trade chip than as a member of the starting rotation.
The most polarizing of the current starting pitchers is, of course, Kodai Senga. The Mets have not often had great success importing players from Asia or Korea to enhance their roster but that trend got flipped on its head in 2023 when Senga joined the team and delivered at a 12-7 record with a 2.98 ERA which earned him an All Star berth and a second place finish for Rookie of the Year.
His follow up in 2024 was lost due to injury with just a single start but with a still impressive 3.38 ERA. Come 2025 he looked even better than the dominant rookie of 2023 but then injuries hit and he became a scapegoat for the nightmare season. Sort through the open hostility and the numbers were not exactly as bad as you would expect. Though he finished in Syracuse and did not get promoted in September to try to help get to October baseball, his record over 22 starts was a 7-6 record with a 3.02 ERA and just about a strikeout per inning pitched.
At $15 million per season that sure looks like a great value. For reference Senga has been worth 6.7 WAR in three years. Peterson has been worth 6.7 WAR over six years and Manaea has been worth 14.7 WAR but took ten years to get to that total. Yeah, Senga is by far the best of the three of them.
Everyone is expecting the 2026 rotation to be better than it was in 2025. For now it is surely going to include the untradable Sean Manaea, reliever turned starter Clay Holmes and September stellar rookie Nolan McLean. Given the choice of the remaining two starters it would seem they would be far better off keeping Senga but at the same time his numbers (and salary) would make him a much more appealing trade chip than Peterson.
15 comments:
Happy Kwanzaa Mrs. Reese
Regarding SP...
My first addition would be a su btraction. Maybe two, if that's possible
I want either Manaea, Peterson, or Senga on another team in 2026. Preferably Manaea. Sure, I'd kick in money. I need that slot open.
Right now, only McLean and Holmes are fixed pieces in my 2026 rotation
Reese is correct here
Lots of work still to be done in the 2026 rotation
I still like Peterson - yep, for reasons unknown, he staggered in the second half, but he was strong before that in 2024 and the first half of 2025, Was it simply exhaustion? Was something bothering him that required rest? Gotta figure that out.
That said, Senga, Manea, and Peterson are 3 question marks. Hard to believe all 3 will become exclamation points in 2026. The trick will be who to move out that is least likely to become an exclamation point. Also depends on the market for each.
Personally, I think Manea is the least likely to become an exclamation point in 2026. I can see a 5.00 ERA from him.
We need an innings eater in the rotation more than an ace at this point. I look for Bassett return at 2 yrs; 25m total. And we will need someone top tier year after to pair with McLean at the head of the rotation, but that can wait until next offseason.
I agree we need to trade a pitcher. You won't get anything for Manaea and likely will have to pay down more than half his salary for each of next two years. That's 25 total! Peterson would have to be part of a package in you are looking to get a decent return (say Robert Jr for two years). Senga has the highest ceiling and offers the greatest variation from what the other righties throw. Of the three he is the highest variance in terms of risk/reward, but because there is so much downside risk, I don't think others will be willing to give much in return because if he doesn't perform well it will be hard if not impossible for them to turn him over to someone else. We are in a better position to absorb that risk and keep the possibility of the ceiling outcome.
I don't think we will trade for a Peralta who is in his 30s and we would control for only one year, or a Pivetta, who is also in his 30s and his contract provides him opt out after each of next two years.
Unless we trade for a lefty like Bubic from KC, we have to keep either Manaea or Peterson or we will be without a lefty SP
Imai's appeal is strongly correlated to the length of contract. He obviously wants to play on big stage, so may take fewer years in his intro to MLB to play in NY. We have too many pitchers with promise that we need to sort out to overinvest in bodies this year, especially if doing so requires a contract beyond 2/3 years.
And we want to keep options open for adding a FA next year!
I think we will see less in the way of SP additions this off season than one might have predicted .
I think the
My guess is Stearns hopes one of the kids will step up in ST and win an OD slot
Just a guess
I would call the Cardinals and offer an even trade Manaea for Arenado. He can platoon 3rd/1st base.
Sign the Japanese starter and Bassett and call it a day for rotation
The pickins are slim in this discussion.
As for Manaea, he to me is first to go. I don't see him coming back so 50 cents on the dollar is better than nothing. If he starts like last year he is a cut candidate so 50% is still more than nothing.
Senga has the most upside I would stick with him for now. I'm sure if they could get anything for him, they would trade him also.
If they trade Manaea, Peterson would be my SP5. If he falters move him to the pen.
Bassett still eats innings, always liked him.
It is reasonable to assume that over the course of a season every team will have games started by somewhere between 8-10 actual starting pitchers (setting bullpen games to the side). What you don't want to do is keep bringing up pitchers for one offs as it throws off the rhythm of their development and may impact the options they have remaining. That is why you want to have a long reliever who is also a spot starter. That's how important and good Williams was for us a few years ago. I believe Christian Scott will be that person this year, if not out of ST, soon thereafter.
I hate to say it, but much of the pitching roster problems can be traced to the nearly incomprehensible signing of Montas.
I am a believer in Senga, not as an ace -- since part of being an ace is availability -- but because his performance in the latter part of last year (especially his inability to locate his ghost fork) was related to his injury. When healthy he has yet to perform poorly. In fact, his performance has been above mid rotation or better. And one should never underestimate how important it is for a pitcher to have a put away pitch or two in his arsenal. He has that.
To me, from a biomechanical point of view, Manaea is evidence of how difficult it really is to make significant mechanical changes. He did for half a season, but he ended up with a nagging oblique injury, which, when he came back, affected his delivery unconsciously. The brain always wants your body to move in ways that avoid pain, if possible. So he had significantly less control of his motion and its release point. He was considerably less fluid in the motion and often missed on his arm side and regularly compensated for that outcome by throwing across his body which negates much of the impact of slot he had been throwing from.
I wonder if he has been throwing under someone's watchful eyes this off season, because someone with a really good eye and lots of comparison films should be able to tell whether he is on track to return to his second half 2024 arm slot or is still compensating for the impact of his injury.
At this point I would focus on trading one of Senga/Peterson totally depending on the return. They have to know if Manaea’s medicals are improving. If so, they keep him if not they cut him in ST & move on. Realistically if any of th three are having decent to good years they are good deadline trade chips & Peterson in particular would definitely be traded. The Mets will open up spots in the rotation for sure & some of these guys will become piggyback or long relievers.
Holmes was solid but he really is a 5-6 innings pitcher tops. Expect that to happen again next year. If that’s the case he should go back to bullpen & open a spot for one of the young guys. The key is not to block. They will trade for another outfielder so I suspect that’s when at least one of the pieces move. If not takers, let’s them all battle out in spring training & earn it. The young & the old.
2026 will see dead money cut much quicker than the past. Cohen expects it & has confirmed he will cover the salary cost on X
One reason that it is so difficult to make mechanical changes is that the entire motion has to be looked at holistically. If you have a certain arm slot that is the outcome of an entire sequence of movements. You can't just change the arm slot without it impacting what must be done upstream to get you to the new slot. You can try, but you will likely strain or injure yourself to some extent. May well have been what happened to Manaea and why when he came back from his injury he could not find that same slot with the same fluidity he had before the injury. Brain got in the way. The brain remembers what happened last time he tried that! Isn't going to allow that change Not going to green light that arm slot again without first strengthening his obligue. Just an educated guess.
The difficulty of making mechanical changes (and the correlated uncertainty it creates) is the reason why even though I have pointed out that Tong's method of securing an over the top release is unhealthy and puts undo and dangerous levels of pressure on his lower spine (which is not designed to bend, but is instead designed to create stability), I would be reluctant to make changes to his mechanics. It's what his body knows right now.
The easiest physical change would be to keep his spine straight to get rid of the extreme side bend of (I am guessing here somewhat) 30ish*. Normal side bend in sports motions that require some side bend is around 15*. This would change his arm slot to something in the 50s or 60* range and make him a very different pitcher. The other thing would be to try to get the side bend from the mid spine or a bit higher, which is safer, but this would require other changes as well.
In other words, a different pitcher or a number of changes requiring time to implement with uncertain results. And he would have to buy into it. He's young. The problem/injury he faces is not imminent though it could happen at any time or much later in his career, or even after his career is over.
We are not talking tweaks here.
Tom, can you see Peterson like Daniel Murphy? Where, we got tired of waiting for him to become what he is and we let him go and he becomes Ian Snell somewhere else? He was great through his first 125 innings, but then they kept him in for eight more start and forty innings and he was part of the problem. So, let him go but he flourishes somewhere else…
Especially when guys like Sproat, Scott, and Tong get the green light
Stearns is going to wait out the market to see which of the better FA pitchers gets desperate or frustrated enough to take a 2 or maybe 3 yr deal at a slightly higher annual value. While he’s waiting, he’ll keep exploring the trade market. But I’m pretty sure he’d rather overpay in short-term annual value than in prospects.
You would have to sell low if you wanted to move Manaea. My guess would be very little in return for him and Cohen would be eating most of that salary. Might as well keep him to see if he can be resurrected. Peterson carried the team from the pitching standpoint for three plus months in the beginning of last season. Maybe he can do it again and then become a mid-season trade piece. Senga has disappointed not only with his up and down performance, but his lack of stamina and his inability to help attract other Japanese stars like Yammamoto.
General comment: look at the level of discourse & commentary on this post (and site)! So much fun to read & learn everyday!!
Thanks everyone & Merry Christmas
RVH -- Couldn't agree more. Still thinking about some help with your golf swing?
Post a Comment