The 2025 New York Mets season has been well-documented. At this time last season, the Mets seemed poised for a deep playoff run and was considered a true championship contender. Instead, the second half hit New York like a pile of bricks. After its second half collapse, David Stearns and Carlos Mendoza made sweeping changes. Although there was initially a thought that Mendoza could lose his job as the manager, Stearns kept Mendoza in place while changing just about every other coach on the staff.
One of the moves made was firing pitching coach Jeremy Hefner. Hefner had been the coaching pitch for the Mets since 2019, so the firing showed the organization was serious about changing its ways. It didn’t take long for Hefner to find work. About a month later, the division-rival Atlanta Braves brought in the pitching coach in the same role.
Although the Mets and Braves had very different 2025 seasons, both teams were viewed as two of the biggest disappointments in baseball with questions heading into 2026. Atlanta promoted Walt Weiss to manager after Brian Snitker retired. Heading into 2026, the Braves figured to have a potent offense, but significant questions remained regarding their pitching staff.
It didn’t help that Spencer Schwellenbach has missed the entire season to this point and Spencer Strider is back on the injured list after making a grand total of eight starts. Outside of Chris Sale and Bryce Elder, the Braves have had to piece together their rotation after not making any significant moves in the offseason. The Mets have had their own injuries to deal with, but the team figured to have solid depth while their top starters entering the season, Freddy Peralta and Nolan McLean, have stayed healthy.
Despite who has made up the two respective pitching staffs, the Braves are currently second in all of baseball to the New York Yankees in ERA. The team is also top five in WHIP and opponent batting average. The Mets aren’t too far behind in opponent batting average, but they are about league average in ERA and WHIP. Given the investments each team made in the offseason, that’s not how it should be. If you had told Alex Anthopoulos and company that Atlanta would be a top five pitching staff in baseball as we hit the midway point in the season, he would have been thrilled even before taking into account the injuries.
It’s even more impressive that the Braves' starters are sixth in both ERA and opponent average. Meanwhile, the Mets rotation is in the bottom four in starters’ ERA.
Monday night is a great example of the Braves success. Despite a 1-0 loss to the Padres, Grant Holmes was very good in 4.2 innings. Holmes has been league average for Atlanta in 15 starts this season. Holmes is only in his third year in the league and only had seven starts in his rookie season. He is on pace to blow by his career high in innings (115 last season). His control can be erratic with 4.5 walks per nine innings, but he has done a good job at keeping the ball in the yard.
Martín Pérez has been a revelation for the Braves. The 35-year-old lefty is pitching to a 2.78 ERA with a 1.07 WHIP. He barely gives up the long ball and has been almost 50% better than league average. Pérez signed a minor league contract with the Braves just to keep his career alive. Now, the southpaw is thriving under Hefner’s leadership. The Braves are still waiting for top prospect JR Ritchie to come into his own, but the rookie has already shown he has very good breaking stuff with a plus two run value on those pitches.
The expected statistics show that the Mets have been unlucky. The team is actually fourth in expected slugging against and sixth in expected opponent average. The staff is also very good at preventing hard contact. They are top 10 in both average opponent exit velocity along with hard hit rate, just ahead of the Braves in both metrics. Maybe things will balance out as we enter the second half of the season, as it does appear the Mets are better than their league average statistics would suggest. On the other hand, the underlying metrics don’t tell the whole story.
Freddy Peralta is in the bottom seven among qualifiers in ERA. His expected ERA is a full run lower, so he shouldn’t be nearly as bad as what he has shown. His fastball is still a plus pitch, but even if his ERA was 3.83 instead of 4.83, that is still not living up to the ace that Mets fans expected when the team acquired him in the offseason.
McLean has been very good with a couple of rough appearances inflating his numbers, but his bright red baseball savant page shows that he can be an ace in the near future. You’re just putting a lot on a rookie’s shoulders if he needs to be your stopper every fifth day.
After the 2025 season concluded, two NL East rivals were at a crossroads. It was a pivotal point in the direction of both clubs. Both teams addressed their bullpens while the Mets made a big investment in their rotation. Fair or not, the Mets pointed the finger at Hefner when they fired him, and the Braves scooped him up. Now, the Braves have a top pitching staff in baseball despite only two starters having enough innings to qualify, while the Mets appear destined to sell at the trade deadline with more questions than answers for the rest of 2026 and beyond.
12 comments:
Peterson is gone so I suppose the selling has started.
It is hard to say anything positive about the N.Y. Mets. Anything.
Actually Benge, Ewing and Alvarez have been positive lately.
Under Heffner the Mets staff gave up too many walks and only Channing (sp) outperformed consistently. Can't say they have been better since and Heffner has done a very good job with the Atlanta staff. Don't want to take anything away from him.
Rds -- I would add a caveat to your comments about Benge, Ewing and Alvarez, The first two have been consistently good for quite a while now against all levels of pitching. Alvarez has had two kinds of hits (and lots of strikeouts): singles against pitches that he should be barreling up but is not because of the path of his swing and his mechanics, and two homers against Cubs second tier pitchers who are unable to expose his weaknesses. I applaud the improvement, but resist reading too much into it. His raw power has always allowed him to overwhelm lesser pitching; his failure to develop even minimally efficient mechanics has set his ceiling both against good pitchers and against time, as his upper body only power source will diminish as his bat speed declines inevitably. Everyone's does; catcher's especially. But also his will because he does not efficiently transfer energy from the ground to the bat.
I guess we had to hit rock bottom so last night had to be it right? I can't wait for DS who is no doubt working hard to come up with serious spin to explain it and I'm sure it will be riveting.
We all see the spin…the season is spinning down the drain.
Ray, true. Especially Ewing and Benge.
What is stunning is the Cubs just put that prospect in the minor league IL. I thought Stearns said he was done trading for injured players?
Alvy always reverts to the overswing when he hits home runs. Expect his average to plummet over the next few weeks.
I thought that Hefner was used as a scapegoat last year. He is proving that to be true.
This season is out of control. Let's call it a day. There is an issue that I feel compelled to raise. I don't think you want to put your rising players into a losing environment. You also don't want your superstars feeling they made a mistake in signing with you. Presumably they thought they were getting into a winning situation. The combination of the two -- rising players in a losing environment and start players being disgruntled and looking for leverage to get out -- can do more damage than this season has already done.
IMHO, the deadline cannot be just a sell off. it has to be part of an intentional effort to make a break with the current/past and display a commitment to not accepting anything less than the pursuit of excellence, from the top down.
I was in favor of firing Mendy with the coaches, but I understood decision not to. I was definitely in favor of doing so after the 12 game losing streak. The through line of poor performance had been sufficiently established. Once they declined to do so, I didn't see the point of doing it at any point till now, since doing so would have been pointless. It is no longer pointless. It is not merely performative either. It is a signal that enough is enough.
I also think that a commitment that is later leaked to the press that the POBO and the owner are committed to finding a GM who is an experienced baseball person to help fill out the FO, would be another signal.
And I also think making an additive trade if possible would make sense. The SF Giants are going to rebuild and they will want prospects. I wouldn't touch Devers with a 20ft poll, but Chapman is a different story. He has 4 yrs left on a very reasonable 25m/year contract He plays a position we have no one who can play it well under control. He is a multi-gold glove winner, a solid hitter who slots into the gap between the top 4 in the order and6-9, and is a righty bat that we need..
I am sure others would disagree with me, but I would also look to fill first base via trade, but that should wait till the offseason, because among other things I would try to convince Soto to pulling a Harper by moving to 1st. We have no one in AA or AAA that is viable at either 1B or 3B -- if we are being honest. But we do have 2nd, 3rd or SS covered potentially just 3 years or fewer away. If Bichette does not exercise his option, he should be moved to 2B this upcoming year with Voit in the wings. We will find it hard to do much with Semien in trade, but that is not a reason why he should be starting and playing every day.
We got to stop pretending and rationalizing. And we have to create a winning environment
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