Well, the Francisco Alvarez injury seemed like the latest health debacle to derail the already losing season for Steve Cohen’s Mets until Saturday when a batted ball resulted in a fractured fibula for their hottest starting pitcher, Clay Holmes. A cracked bone that doesn’t require surgery is the best news they’ve gotten thus far and the expectation is that Holmes will return to pitch during the 2026 season. In the interim, however, the question of how to fill the open slot in the rotation is what’s causing the most emotional buzz among the fans and media pundits.
Right now the Mets have three starting pitchers in the minors to consider for an injury related early arrival to Queens. One we’ve seen before, one we have not except for spring training and the third has just arrived in Syracuse but in his whopping two game stat sheet has looked ready for the higher level of competition.
Jonah Tong is very much a puzzling hurler. He strikes people out at a very high rate and in 2025 was clearly the hottest starting pitcher in the Mets minor league hierarchy. Then he hit the majors in September and the wheels not only came off but blew out spectacularly. This year he seems to be on-again/off-again in his output. Right now his ERA of 5.68 suggests he is not quite ready for prime time despite having 55 strikeouts in 38 IP.
Quickly looking to bypass Tong on the promising pitcher depth chart is Jack Wenninger who has had just 7 starts in Syracuse but he’s absolutely making the most of them. While questions have arisen about his less than spectacular velocity, it’s very hard to argue with his 7 games there that include 38 Ks in 32 IP, a 1.08 ERA and a batting average against of just .165. It would seem that he’s showing the strong pedigree to give him a temporary shot in the majors and see whether he’s more McLean or more Tong when facing the best of the best.
The third guy with very little experience in AAA is southpaw Zach Thornton. During his three minor league seasons he owns a 3.04 ERA and in Syracuse thus far it’s just 2.25. At age 24 he’s at the point in his development that a push to the majors may not be considered early but they probably want to see him deliver a bit longer in the minors before declaring him ready.
Here’s where it gets a bit strange. For all intents and purposes David Peterson is a starting pitcher even with Huascar Brazoban taking over opener duties in his past several games. So you can’t really count him in the mix. There are others, however.
Sean Manaea is rapidly evolving into the 2026 version of Frankie Montas that makes people question David Stearns’ judgment in picking up starting pitchers. He’s been banished to the pen as a punishment for his awful numbers as a starter. Right now he’s sporting an overall 6.56 ERA with a godawful WHIP of 1.714. For that output he’s earning $25 million this year and again next year. Uggh!
Moving Manaea into the starting rotation once again has a few layers of probability. First, he is an experienced starting pitcher and should not have the rookie growing pains that the AAA choices would likely endure. Second, he right now has no value whatsoever as a trade chip, but if somehow he could turn things around to say a 4.00 ERA level as a starter then he opens up the possibility for the club to do a late July trade to another team who’s aching for a starting pitcher.
The other current roster member who could slot into the rotation would be former Brewer Tobias Myers. While this year he sports just a single starting pitcher assignment, for his short career he has been in 64 games with exactly half of them as a starter. His career ERA is 3.16 and this year he’s right near that number at 3.25. The issue here would be arm strength as he’s been at best a multi inning reliever but not expected to carry the game for five or more innings. Still, at nearly minimum wage and still just 27 years old he’s a hurler with a future on this club that should be longer than the one year remaining for Manaea.
Let us not forget about the other injured starting pitcher, Kodai Senga. We all know how good he can be when he’s healthy but over the past few years remaining available to start every 5th day has not been something the Mets can write down in ink for their right handed ghost fork specialist. With his injury history although he’s now working off the mound it’s likely a month or more before he’d be deemed ready. Consequently he is not a short term solution for Holmes’ next start.
Now it is possible for the Mets to go out and look at either the DFA transactions or (shudder) actually make a trade, but thus far the club has not shown an inclination to add anything but scrap heap picks when needs arise. With a fractured fibula the timeline for the bone to recover is 6-8 weeks but conventional wisdom has it more like 3 full months before someone resumes all normal activities. For a professional athlete it could be even longer. A three month outage means mid August if everything goes right. That’s not right around the corner. The easiest thing to do would be to return Manaea to the rotation but the smarter move might be promoting Jack Wenninger. Time will tell.
7 comments:
Manaea 6.26 ERA) has been a disaster, especially considering his paycheck. You want to lose? Allow him to start.
Senga? Anthony Como four days ago reported this: Kodai Senga (lumbar spine inflammation) threw a bullpen session this afternoon with hitters standing in. He says his back feels good, but he's working to get his pitch metrics where they need to be. Sounds like it will still be a while for Senga, even though he's now throwing. 20 innings, 20 earned runs. Hurry back…to Japan.
You want to lose? Allow Kodai ((0-4) to start.
Bring up the kids. And don’t be too hard on them. Wenninger, Thornton, and Tong are BETTER than Manaea and Senga. Give the kids breathing space.
Nice job laying out the options. The point had been previously made that Wenninger's start yesterday means he won't be ready when Holmes' next start comes up, but that might be remedied by slotting the combo of Brazoban and Peterson to give Wenninger additional time. There are workarounds in any case.
I remember Maddux arguing that the three most important factors in pitching are, in order, location, movement, velocity, and that the first two are far more important than the third.
That is Wenninger's formula so far.
And he needn't go six or seven as the Mets are also inclined to save Manaea for longer relief stints so backing him up with Manaea makes sense for a bit.
And if we have to go with two combos: Brazoban/Peterson to get through five or six; and Wenninger/Manaea to get through however many we can, it adds some stability without overtaxing the bullpen or changing Myers highly versatile role at the moment.
I am optimistic about Thornton, but would like to see him get a half dozen outings at AAA in different ballparks to build up his confidence; and while I have always been mixed about Tong (my main concern being lower back injury), I also worry that he isn't a starter without a horizontal pitch thrown from the same release point -- which is not easy to do, as his uneven stint in the minors this year has confirmed. It is good for him to go throw some difficulty as his prior years' performances were not indicative of his stuff or how it would play at the major league level.
Minter should be back soon, and there are genuine additional relievers in the minors: Lambert, Ross, and Severino among them. The pitching coaches have been doing a pretty good job though some pitchers, especially RJ Gordon have faltered a bit.
Santucci is coming along as a starter as well. No need to rush anyone along or to expose them before they are ready. IMHO.
Manaea can rebuild his trade value by backing up Wenninger for multiple innings, and by improving his performance as well as his velocity. He did the latter yesterday but not the former.
The Mets should stop this Brazoban starting bullshit and return Peterson to starting. He looked sharp this weekend.
As for Holmes slot, showcase Manaea in hopes of attracting a trade suitor
Then, after the trade deadline, dump all deadwood you have left that hasn't been traded and start bringing up the kiddies to pitch along side McLean and Scott
A tip of the chapeau to Mack for his on-point recommendation.
I am pretty sure I don't fully understand the opener strategy, but I have tried to look at the data behind it as it used more often than throughout the majors and also seems to have a different rationale than the bullpen game. I have gleaned two different but related reasons for it. Some starters have their most difficulty in the first inning, and presumably there can be different reasons for that. One is apparently facing the top of the order when the pitcher is most anxious, i.e. before settling in. Relievers typically don't face that kind of issue as they are often brought in facing all manner of different spots in the line-up and don't typically have first inning jitters -- can't afford to :-).
Another rationale I have found is that some starters begin to lose their effectiveness in the 4th and 5th inning. The Mets own Megill suffered from this. He was done in more by a predictable one inning blow up during his starts than anyone else in the rotation. And his often came in the 4th and 5th. It seemed to be happening to Peterson as well this year (but not last year). So you can kill 2 birds with one stone by having someone ready to pitch the 1st and then moving on to the starter facing first the second half of the starting line-up and only facing the top half a second, not a third time by the fifth or 6th.If a starter is uncomfortable in 1st, this may extend the order and he will be facing the toughest part of the order a 3rd time by the 5th far more often.
What we do know is that Peterson was doing poorly as the starter and now he has been doing a lot better, whatever the true explanation. If it were hurting the rest of the bullpen I could understand wanting to change things. But that hasn't happened yet. Brazoban has been available between Peterson games and has been effective as well. So, I would be inclined not to fiddle with an effective approach. Just my view.
By the same token, if we were going to move either Manaea or Myers to starter to replace Holmes, I would use Manaea and bring up one of the minor league relievers while keeping Myers as the most versatile reliable reliever.
But I would also have no problem in bringing up Wenninger with the thought of backing him up with Manaea. Either works.
I don't know where we will be at the trade deadline but if we enter a fire sale, I'd be reluctant to bring up the pitchers when they are facing major leaguers while not being backed by as good a team as possible. It can hurt their confidence and it doesn't provide the information you think it does.
Wenninger & Thorton both had quite a few walks in their recent starts.
Tong also does not seem ready yet.
That said, pick the best one & run with it. Also, Myers should be stretched out. We will have to deal with additional starters all season long. Still 75% of the season to play
Thought they might give Manaea one more try -but yesterdays continued slop should finally push him to IL to get elbow surgery & try to pull it together for one more try next spring before cutting him.
Agree with Mack. Start Peterson as he represents a better chance of success vs one of the kids right now.
The only thing that Manaea can attract right now is flies. You know as when they fly over doo-doo.
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