While a main focus for the 2026 upcoming season was reengineering the offensive side of the roster, there was just as much reconstruction needed in the starting rotation and the bullpen. Gone were a great many 2025 free agents and returning were the members of the staff that imploded from mid season onward.
The big acquisition of Freddy Peralta this past week seemed to relieve the great many Mets fans and media types who were running on fumes not looking forward to a return of questionable quintet. Peralta was not just an ace quality pitcher but he came in at a bargain price in exchange for a couple of top prospects and without any guarantee he’d be around for more than the 2026 season when he would be eligible to become a free agent. Many people are already trumpeting the relationship between David Stearns and Freddy Peralta giving the team an inside track on working on a contract extension before free agency arrives, but thus far Stearns has been tight lipped about how that might evolve.
What this significant addition to the rotation has done is open up the question about who is pushed out to make room? We all assume Nolan McLean is written in stone given his dominance at the end of 2025. Clay Holmes also proved that his transition to starting pitcher was a successful one. Then the question marks begin.
Lefty David Peterson is one of those Tylor Megill types who goes through stretches of competency along with multiple starts where he doesn’t even appear capable of facing major league hitters. For 2025 he finished with a 4.22 ERA after delivering 2.90 over 21 starts the year before. For his career the number is 4.12 and he will become a free agent at year’s end. Right now his minimal salary and short term commitment may make him a more desirable trade prospect to other clubs than the other two choices.
On top of these starting six you have two younger pitchers on the periphery who are likely slated to begin the year in Syracuse. Totally dominant Jonah Tong was anything but during his rushed September trial so he will need to regroup and see if he can adjust to the AAA level for a full season’s duration before he is considered one of the top five.
The same applies to recovering starter Christian Scott. He was totally dominant as a minor league hurler when summoned to the majors during the 2024 season. That career was on a solid projection when through three levels he delivered a 2.57 ERA for 2023 and then all of 2024 in Syracuse was at 2.76. His major league trial which was cut short by injury was a much less impressive 4.56 so he’s going to need to prove he’s both healthy and dominant again before playing in Queens.
The next time around we’ll take a look at the upcoming season’s bullpen.
13 comments:
I am puzzled by the degree of general ongoing negativity about David Peterson on this site. He was great in 2024 after he came back from his hip surgery. And then, and his first 24 outings of 2025, he was 8-5 and had a 3.18 ERA. He seemed to have just run out of gas at that point. But his stretch in 2024 (10-3, 2.90) plus the first 24 starts of 2025 were really near All-Star caliber. So, I am assuming he had a dead arm late in 2025 and he’ll be fine this year.
Manaea was lousy in 2025. Adrian Houser was lousy in 2025, but strongly rebounded in 2025. Jerry Koosman was 11-35 in a 2 year span, then won 20 games the next season. For both him and Sanga, I wanna see what they’ve got left in spring training. Both are professionals. Maybe we’ll get a strong rebound year out of one or both of them.
I saw nothing out of clay Homes last year that would make me think that he will have some sort of off-season in 2026. I think we all need to keep in mind that although his earnings were up in 2025, he and his comrades on the Mets did not have to pitch in the postseason so they’re much better rested than the teams that had guys going deep into the postseason.
Overall, I feel quite good about the starting rotation options for 2026 right now. David may see something up closer and more personal that would cause him to still wanna make a starter move. But I think the Mets are in very good shape in the starter category right now probably a top 10 team.
Here is what I think will happen
Opening Day - The Mets will name Freddy Peralta, Nolan McLean, Kodai Senga, Clay Holmes, and Sean Manaea as their opening day five-man rotation. David Peterson will settle in as the long man (and emergency SP6) while Christian Scott, Tobias Myers, and Jonah Tong will start off in the AAA-Syracuse rotation. Sean Manaea will trip coming out of the dugout while he was heading to the mound to throw his first pitch of the season. He will suffer from a compound fracture of his right hip and will be immediately sent to the hospital to be operated on. He will be placed on the 60-day while being operated and will never be heard of again. David Peterson will replace Manaea in the rotation and will pitch 7-IP, 0-R, 10-K in his first outing. Jonah Tong and Tobias Myers will immediately begin to dominate for Syracuse. Christian Scott will not.
April - Kodai Senga will return to his April-May 2025 form while Clay Holmes will continue to struggle pitching more than five innings per start. Peralta and McLean will finish the month with a combined 3.00-ERA. Peterson around 4.00.
May - Christian Scott will return to the IL with arm weariness. Jack Wenninger will begin to dominate in Cuse'. Senga will strikeout 15 in eight innings... Peterson will continue to struggle. Myers will finish the first two months 5-0 with a sub-1.50 ERA
June - Both Peralta and McLean start to dominate. Senge goes on the IL after going down with a torn labrum. He immediately is advised to have TJS, but choses to retire from baseball and return home to his homeland. He is last seen living in a coastal fishing village and coaching a local pee-wee team there. He is replaced in the Mets rotation with Myers. Peterson continues to struggle but shows great results in the first two innings he pitches each start. He is then placed in the Mets pen as the primary long man and is replaced by Jack Wenninger.
July - The Clay Holmes starter experiment ends, Like Peterson, he joins the Mets pen and is replaced by Jonah Tong
Starting rotation is now:
Peralta, McLean, Tong, Wenninger, Myers
The excitement about the Mets' prospect pipeline has been building year over year as the team improves their domestic and international scouting. Many of the Mets' picks are being discussed throughout baseball, so Mack has boiled it down to the top 30 to give the readers a glimpse into the team's future. This series will run for 30 days, counting down from #30 to #1. The entire list can be viewed by clicking "2026 Top 30 Prospects" on the top menu bar.
List has been reduced to 28 with the loss of Brandon Sproat and Jett Williams
Wow, thanks Mack - now I won’t have to write up real-time mo that reviews this season! :)
I think they may need to try to go with a 5.5 man rotation. The best SPs have 30-31 starts, pitch 6 innings so about 185 innings. The median does about 20 starts / 125 innings, many do 10/50 innings. They need 850-900 innings from their starters. They will use all of them. If Manaea is healthy and reasonably productive - I suspect Holmes will fall to the pen at some point. Peterson will be fine - we was gassed by August last year. Had enormous pressure by carrying the whole starting rotation in June & quilt. Not just performance but pressure to be perfect. The ASB didn’t help - no rest.
There will be a lot of shifting & IL stints with rookies with options so many will go up & down.
Christian Scott must establish himself this year - he will be out of options so they will give him the first crack at- if he doesn’t make it at OD. Remember every year for the past three years Megill was penciled for AAA & made team due to injury. Someone will get hurt in ST. Sure hope McLean & Peralta avoid that fate! Senga too
Mack, if only the Mets had a knuckleballer like Wilbur wood to go out and throw 380 innings, like Wilbur did one year a few decades ago,they’d be fine.
I keep leaving my guy Santucci out. It hurts my feelings lol. After all, Santucci is superb as I’ve written a few hundred times in columns on these pages.
Tobias the Tremendous will be a key pitcher at some point. I’d prefer to refer to him as Tobi Won Kenobi
One other option will be to constantly piggyback Manaea & Holmes when th calendar dictates a true 5-man rotation. Don’t burn out the bullpen. Rule #1!
Teams must find a way to deliver “starter” innings in aggregate, provide starters space to manage workload & avoid injury. The league hasn’t figured this out yet.
If you piggyback the 5/6 starters & have another long man for the inevitable crappy start somewhere else you Dave the short men in the BP.
Also, Mendoza needs to learn how to predict a game earlier in the game. Only 70% of games are competitive/toss ups (aka 1R games) in a given season.
30% are blow out W/Ls so they must be managed more effectively. I’m sure the quants can predict games at 3 & 5 innings since the betting sites do it after every pitch & inning. Using Cohen’s hedge fund quants - this is the smart way to play the game.
Eventually the manager job will be an Elon Musk AI robot in a uniform! (Sorry for the side bar - too much coffee this AM!)
Hey Mack, when did you turn into Canrac the Magnificent (dating myself).
Very astute observations, but I think Tobias will open up as our long man in the pen. His stats as a reliever are great. I think he assumes our Seth Lugo role.
RV, good comments. the Mets will definitely need a 6th starter at times, with Senga and Manaea. Perfect for Peterson as he fades after 125 innings.
Anybody have any info on that Azurby guy. He looks like he could be a pleasant surprise. If he reverts to form, we have a very solid bullpen.
RVH, love your ideas. In fact, I have an idea regarding piggybacks and who should start. Peterson was the best pitcher of all of these guys until August 19th. He went at least six innings 16 of his first 24 starts. Peralta went 13 of 32.
Early in the season, as the starters build arm strength and stretch out, there will be many opportunities to gang together two long men - like Tobias, Christian, or David. This gets you deep into the game without running everyone in the pen out for an inning. Later in the season there will hopefully be less need for this, but by then inevitable injuries will require replacement. Having extra starting pitchers on the roster is a necessity, not a luxury.
Written in jest
I have long been a supporter of piggy-backing games. It is remarkable to me how little strategic thinking goes into SP use, beyond running them out in roughly the same order every 5th day or so. The only real innovations ( I actually do not think they are at all innovative) are : the bullpen game; the opener. Has it never occurred to anyone that as SPs barely get to face a line-up a third time. It should be standard to have 3 starters at a minimum who you can mix and match strategically, while always giving one a rest or a full start. On the Mets, the truth is that the 3 most likely for this role are Holmes, Manaea and Peterson. All three have also worked out of the bullpen.
Add to that Paul's suggestion that you might want to double down on this strategy earlier in the season as all starters are stretching out and you have the beginnings of real innovation. Also leads to much more rational use of the bullpen.
I was going to do a post on this strategy around start of ST and may yet do so by looking for the right matchups. Excellent conversation guys
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