Good Morning –
Let’s move on to the
2026 Mets pitching staff.
Starter wise, a new stud
and a plethora of meh.
Freddy Peralta joins Nolan McLean as
two formattable front-end starters and Clay Holmes joins them as a middle to
back-ender. THIS JUST IN – Peralta is expressing an immediate interest
in signing an extension with the Mets past the 2026 season… why not? Mr. Money Bags (Steve Cohen)
is in the front office checking the Dow Jones.
Jonah Tong is the wild card here
and, if he has a strong spring and joins this rotation, he will start off at
SP3 with SP1 potential.
My guess is Tong will
freeze his arse off in Syracuse come April and the Mets will have to pick from Kodai Senga,
David
Peterson, Sean Manaea, and Christian Scott to
fill slots SP4, SP5, and possibly, SP6.
I’ve been told two
things… Senga is fully healed and is 100% going into ST… and the only thing
that might limit Scott is the fact he has had no game experience since his IL
stint. I’m told his arm is stronger than he went into that injury and is
hitting 99 on the back mounds., and Manaea (if he’s still around).
Right now, my guess is
the opening day rotation will be Peralta, McLean, Senga, Holmes, and Manaea (if
he is still around). Peterson is out of options and will line up as the long
man while on hold as the SP6. As for Scott, yes, he does have an option left
and he will build up game arm strength in the warmth of Syracuse in April.
We will discuss the pen
in my next report.
Running From The OPS - @OPS_BASEBALL
Ryan Clifford won’t turn 23 for
another six months and popped 29 HR with a reduced 25.6% K%.
Easy pull side juice
from his 6'3"/200 frame & stays relaxed prior to unleashing his swing.
Connected w/ minimal moving parts & posted a 93.6 MPH Avg EV and 53.1% H-H%
in his 142 AAA PA.
MACK – Clifford is getting a lot of positive ink
lately, especially because of the reduced K% last season. This was the one stat
everybody hated about Ryan, if this is the new Clifford, the Mets. just may
have found their starting 2027 first baseman
Thomas Nestico @TJStats
Tobias Myers (acquired by NYM)
is a depth arm who spent 2025 is a hybrid role split between MLB and AAA
His carrying trait is a
high-riding fastball which struggled to produce positive results in 2025 and a
deep array of secondaries. Two intriguing traits the Mets can play with.
MACK – this guy could be the
stead of the off-season
Mets Acquire Vidal Bruján from
the Twins for cash considerations
GROK –
Vidal Bruján is a Dominican professional
baseball player born on February 9, 1998, in San Pedro de Macorís, Dominican
Republic.
He's currently 27 years old
(turning 28 soon) and plays as a versatile utility infielder/outfielder.
He's a switch-hitter and
throws right-handed.
Standing at 5'9" and
weighing 180 lbs, he's known for his defensive flexibility rather than power
hitting. He can play multiple positions including second base, shortstop, third
base, right field, and occasionally others.
Bruján signed as an
international free agent with the Tampa Bay Rays in 2014 and progressed through
their minor league system. He made his MLB debut with the Rays on July 7, 2021.
His MLB career has involved
several teams and transactions:
Started with the Rays.
Traded to the Miami Marlins
in November 2023.
Later to the Chicago Cubs
(around late 2024).
Claimed off waivers by the
Baltimore Orioles in 2025, then to the Atlanta Braves shortly after.
Claimed by the Minnesota
Twins off waivers from the Braves in January 2026.
Designated for assignment by
the Twins shortly after, then traded to the New York Mets for cash
considerations
Career MLB stats (through
the 2025 season):
Batting average around
.199–.253 in various seasons (career ~.199 overall in some sources, with a
slight uptick in 2025).
5 home runs.
48 RBIs.
Some speed with 16 stolen
bases.
He's appeared in a few
hundred games, mostly in a bench/utility role.
In 2025, he hit .253 in
limited action (around 61 games across teams), with no home runs but some
contributions in RBIs and steals, plus even a couple of pitching appearances
(not his primary role—more of an emergency thing).
Bruján was a solid minor
league prospect earlier in his career, with good contact skills and
versatility, but he hasn't established himself as a regular starter in the
majors.
He's valued as a depth piece
and defensive option on benches.
Recent moves show he's been
bouncing around as teams shuffle roster spots, but landing with the Mets gives
him another shot at MLB time in 2026. He's arbitration-eligible soon and has
some service time accumulated.
Lance Brozdowski lancebroz@substack.com
Freddy Peralta
Freddy Peralta and his
morphing slider now reside in Queens. If you’ve followed my Substack, you have
probably read a post of mine from years past highlighting how this pitch has
shape-shifted (here, here, and here). Last year, the evolution was the lowest
slider usage of his career at ~10%. Instead of throwing 30% slider to righties
as he did in 2023 and 2024, he split up his non-fastball usage. He threw
curveballs and changeups each around 15%, and cut back his slider to that mark
as well. The results were positive. Peralta pushed his K-BB from 18.5% to 24.6%
against righties when compared to 2024. Against lefties, he mimicked his 2023
approach, throwing fewer sliders and embracing his curveball and changeup.
Refining both attack plans allowed him to post the best season of his career
(2.70 ERA). He also moved toward the third base side of the rubber at the
beginning of the season and stuck there throughout the year.
I bet the Mets attempt to
right the ship with his slider and feature that pitch more against right-handed
hitters. It grades better than his changeup and curveball and seems as though a
blip in performance back in 2024 pushed him off the pitch. I’ll also point out
his feel for the offering remains a mystery. As I mentioned, the pitch morphs.
If you look at a monthly log of this shape since 2024 and focus on the
glove-side movement, you’ll see how much the pitch has contracted and shortened
its shape. Is his feel just bad? Is it all intentional? Is his feel actually
very good, hence the manipulation? These are questions I have that I’ve not
discovered answers to, but my lean is that he lost his feel for the pitch.
Otherwise, he’d be throwing it more. I do think this shape is a key to beating
his projections by a material amount. He’s currently pegged for a 3.80 ERA
across 180 innings with a really strong 27% strikeout rate and a ~1.20 WHIP, a
top 30 pitcher in baseball.
The prize of his profile I
have buried the lead on. Peralta has one of the better righty four-seam
fastballs in MLB. He extends nearly 7 feet down the mound despite standing just
6 feet in height. He has an average arm angle (40°), but a release height that
is nearly 6” lower than average for pitchers with comparable arm angles. This
results in a very flat approach of his four-seam fastball into the strike zone.
It’s a tough pitch to generate damage on in the zone. Peralta presents
stability for the Mets in what was an otherwise unstable rotation. Let’s see if
he can push well beyond his projections in a contract year.
Tobias Myers
I didn't think I’d be
considering Myers a key to a trade that involves Freddy Peralta and Brandon
Sproat on a random Wednesday night in late January, but here we are. It’s not
that Myers will make or break the trade for the Mets. It’s more that turning him
back into the 2024 version of himself would surely help calm the sting of
losing 6 more years of Sproat. Baseball Prospectus released new arsenal metrics
early last season, and Myers was the cover boy. In short, he “disguises” his
pitches well. This means the trajectories of his shapes converge such that it’s
difficult for the hitter to discern (among other things presented in their
article). The problem? Myers strained his oblique early in the season and never
seemed to right the ship after a demotion to Triple-A. We were never able to
back up a stellar 2024 with confirmation that he is an odd enough pitcher to
buck Stuff+ models, which think he’s mediocre and reliant on location.
Myers has a 61° arm angle,
which is higher than 98% of pitchers in MLB. Because he has good extension, his
release height is spot on the average for MLB righties, but the visual he
creates as a pitcher is anything but standard. He also gets behind the ball
well, meaning much of what he creates from a pitch shape standpoint has a lot
of lift. Put another way, he has trouble creating depth on his shapes or
getting around the ball. This is why almost everything on his plot sits higher
than the 0” horizontal line (look at the far right widget at this link). I
wonder if this is really what Baseball Prospectus’ arsenal metrics were
highlighting—Myers shapes look the same out of the hand because they all have a
vertical component that makes them hard to distinguish.
Myers appeared to have some
issues with right-handed hitters in 2025 compared to 2024, but looking under
the hood, he generated a comparable number of whiffs, his locations looked
similar, and the underlying batted ball data wasn’t awful. Perhaps he just ran
into some sequencing luck that locked up his ability to put away hitters? Maybe
it was a result of being in zone too much with his slider compared to 2024 (45%
in 2024 compared to 59% in 2025)? He’s historically been slightly worse against
left-handed hitters, so there’s not much to knock between 2024 and 2025. From
glancing at his heatmaps, however, his consistency of location was poor. Put
another way, it seemed like, despite being in the zone more, he was
non-competitive at a higher rate, a weird combination.
Pitch designing Myers is
going to be tough, given the limitations of Myers’ release. I think he
currently possesses every pitch he’ll probably need to find his ceiling. The
question is how his 2024 locations and consistency reemerge in what I’d imagine
is a non-starter role. It wouldn’t hurt to see more velocity than 93.5 on his
four-seamer as a reliever, too.
24 comments:
Just having a guy named Tobias made the trade worthwhile.
I wonder how he went 1-15 with an ERA of nearly 8.00 in the minors in 2022(?) and rebounded from that.
Clifford or Reimer? Or both? We will know better by ,say, August.
I think trading Sproat and Jett were potentially due to their being overrated in Stearns’ eyes.
I saw a video where Peralta loves to have players back to his house after day games to gather and eat. Sounds like a great team guy.
If Peterson looks good in camp, he is in the rotation.
Great minds think alike as I spend Monday and Wednesday analyzing the rotation and the pen. I consider Manaea immovable due to his paycheck not only this year but next. Senga has shown extremely solid stuff when healthy. Holmes did well last year. To me it leaves Peterson as the odd man out unless they want to sell low on prospects Scott or Tong. Since neither are expected to be in the rotation to start the year neither of them helps solve the glut problem.
Hopefully we still have an Ace up our sleeves and sign Zac Gallen. Then trade Manaea to Houston for Christian Walker. Salaries are similar and he has won 3 gold gloves.
Then I would fell happier with our roster.
If they pitch well I can see Peterson and Senga as mid season trade bait? Then bring up some youngsters to take their spots
Morning Pizza Man
I don't expect anymore starters being signed or traded for nor will there be a deal for Walker.
I expect Scott, Tong, and Wenninger will all be rotation ready by July
Manaea may be DFA'd
Mack, rather than DFA Sean perhaps he can move to the bullpen. Two years ago I noted that lefties Brad Hand and Andrew Miller both were really lousy major league starters. So they both decided it was better to switch than fight.
Hand became a very good reliever, while Miller became an elite reliever, who had #'s very close to those of Josh Hader.
Repurpose Manaea, and you might be pleased with the results. The $50 million he is owed over the next two years is a sunk cost. Sending him to the bullpen might be a way to salvage value from him.
Zozo, Zach Gallen had a 4.83 ERA and coughed up 31 HRs last year, one every 6 innings. That does not give me the warm and fuzzies.
It is snowing heavily outside here today. I can’t imagine that it’s much different than having opening day in Syracuse scheduled in late March. I would really love to see our two top. Minor-league teams play their first few weeks in Florida, and the rest of April, have not one single night game. Siberian cold fronts don’t leave upstate New York until the beginning of May.
I am still predicting a strong bounce-back season from Manaea. Senga will last the month of April. Peterson will start strong again, and hopefully guys from Syracuse are ready by the time he wears out.
The boys from Syracuse. Sounds like an Ira Levin story.
The hope is that Peralta, McLean, and Holmes are dependable and that at least one of Manea, Senga, or Peterson finds his groove. I’m sure they have ideas about which of the three is most likely, and best case hopefully two of them can bounce back. But with Scott, Tong, and Wenninger in the wings, along with Tonias Myers, they can fill a hole for a 5th and even a 6th starter if they need them.
Morning Adam
IMO
The Mets are in good shape right now, starter wise
Why is everyone excusing Holmes? His K/BB numbers sucked and he nibbles too much all the time to last five innings. He is the first to go and honestly the Mets now have the depth to ship him out.
As I wrote the other day, Peralta went at least six innings 13 times; Peterson went at least six innings 15 times.
It’s Manaea and Holmes for the sixth spot and I’d love to see them fix Myers and put him at #5. Manaea didn’t want to have surgery to remove the bone chips in his elbow. He will try to pitch with them… let’s see.
Morning Gus
1. I expect Holmes will revert to the pen when the kids begin to graduate
2. But Peralta's results were so much better
3. Refuse an operation to help him? I'm so done with this guy
Good morning Mack. Holmes can opt out after this year. He is a $12MM starting pitxher and will want more from someone. To me, he is not someone I rely on, but someone i converted and will cash in.
Peralta was better when Peterson ran out of gas because he has never thrown more than 110 innings in his career for various reasons and wanted to break through that mark. Until he sucked in August, he was right there with Peralta and even with the suck I was still had more fWAR than Joe Ryan. That tells you how good he was when he was good. While I have whipped on Peterson for years, I don’t want to underscore his accomplishments.
I don’t know what the deal was with Manaea, but I doubt he lasts the year. He has one more guaranteed year that he will take more seriously to get his next contract. Let’s see with him.
To me, it’s not fair to Myers that he isn’t given a shot to start. You have him for five more years and if the man can be fixed baxk to what he was, he is ahead of Manaea and Holmes easily and could be insurance for Peralta or Peterson leaving. Fix him and you have a good five year piece
He may but I think he will go to the pen
If you trade away a player after every bad year, you don’t last long. Have to keep him and see… trade Holmes.
Manaea can go suk an egg
As for the bullpen, everyine there is better than Manaea, LOL
You signed him to be a starter. It looks bad if you do that and really have enough arms to not need to. Get something for him, or wrap him up with Baty to teams that need a third baseman.
Reese, look at Holmes’ K/BB rate last year and compare it to his history and other starters. He did ok with how he was sheltered. His coddling hurt the bullpen. But, I look forward to your analysis.
So
You keep him as a starter
Where?
If Queens, tell me your 5
Man rotation?
Agreed, Mack. They don’t need everything to go right to have a good staff, but it would help if a little went right. All three (Peterson, Senga, and Manaea) have more upside than trade value at this point, so it makes sense that they’ve kept them all - to this point at least. With early season off days, they’ll probably only need 5 starters out of the gate, so it’s not impossible that someone goes if they get the right offer. But barring that, at this point it makes sense to just head south and see who looks good in ST.
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