This year the run prevention strategy has not worked, and the bats that were sacrificed to attain better defense cannot help outscore opponents. The Mets have not been particularly bad in the field, and if anything they have shown some range and inspired play in the outfield. There is one place to look for the reason for a lack of run prevention – the mound.
The starting pitching for the New York Mets has not done the job this season. Despite beginning the season with some hope, some of the big names went down with injuries, some have not performed as expected, and others that one would hope could come through with some improvements have generally failed.
There are a few possible reasons for the failure of starting pitching – let’s take a look.
1) The team was not staffed sufficiently. I don’t believe this is the case. Although the pitching roster does not resemble the finest in Mets history, one could argue that on paper, the rotation of Holmes, Peralta, McLean, Scott, and Senga should have been good enough to win many games with solid defense behind them and a few key hits.
2) The team was hampered by unprecedented injury. I also don’t believe this is a valid reason. No team makes it through the season without injuries, particularly to the pitching staff, which is more vulnerable in today’s game of max effort arms. I think the Mets should have had sufficient depth with guys like Tong, Thornton, and Pintaro in the minors and Peterson/Manaea in the mix.
3) The pitchers are getting confused by the guidance. This one is unproven but certainly has some merit. Why has Kodai Senga failed so miserably since having a fine first season with the Mets? His injuries have been more with core and legs than with the arm, so he has not lost the tools that made him succeed previously. How he uses them comes into question. How about Nolan McLean? He has been throwing video game stuff that has befuddled hitters, yet somehow he has those bad innings that let the game get away.
4) The Mets are not calling a good game. This theory could explain a lot of things. In the prior paragraph I described the unexpected struggles of two pitchers with tremendous ability. This week we saw both throw games against the Cubs that included a baffling mix of pure dominance with nightmare innings. Senga and McLean started their games with dominant first innings. Then their pitches seemed to shift from fastball heavy to breaking stuff that was not finding the plate. A couple walks or hit batters later, something flat across the middle of the plate was launched into the upper stratosphere. Some of this is pitch execution. Some of it is wrong pitches putting a pitcher in the hole and creating batter advantage.
I looked a little deeper into this one. In 49 games this season, with Francisco Alvarez behind the plate, the Mets’ ERA is 4.79 over 436 innings. With Luis Torrens catching, the Mets’ ERA is 3.87 in 432 innings over 48 games. One run per game is quite a big difference when all else is equal. A team ERA of 3.87 is manageable, though not spectacular. It would certainly produce a better record than the 2026 Mets have posted. In MLB this year, eight teams have team ERAs under 3.87 and six of them have winning records. Most are division leaders.
As David Stearns evaluates the team’s performance and ponders his path as the trade deadline nears, he has to be concerned about why good players are not playing good.
In my last piece, I highlighted the issues with not following a strategy to take advantage of the ABS. Today, I am highlighting the inability to maximize the capabilities of today’s pitching staff. If you can’t optimize play with what you have, then it may not be reasonable to overpay to get better players.
4 comments:
All good points.
The pitching injuries are not unprecedented though…they were arguably worse in 2025 once the Mets’ pitching Humvee hit a roadside injury bomb last June.
But Peterson and Senga are simply bafflingly bad. And McLean is still learning, but he needs to lean more on his strengths when pitching, and throw more strikes.
This team has made gargantuan strides towards a major July sell off over the last 5 straight losses.
I hope Polanco and Robert are comfy somewhere.
Excellent points. I agree and have noted before that Alvarez calls a poor game. He also can't throw out runners. And his improved hitting is a mirage in my opinion as his two recent home runs have come against lesser rung pitchers (to put it mildly), and I never expressed doubts about his ability to hit bad pitching. That's in fact the source of his problem. As he made his way through the minors his mechanical weaknesses were never exposed because his natural raw power overwhelmed the competition. Just continue to watch him against good to very good and better pitchers who know how to sequence their pitches to him. He only hits for power against mistakes, and he can't catch. I hope he continues to produce misleadingly good outcomes, that other teams anxious to get a young catcher with power remain impressed and that the Mets figure out that he is flawed and send him to a movement specialist in the off season. If it takes, he can be a real asset. If it does not, he will be a real trade asset.
Alvy at DH and leave him there!
Torrens is a better defensive catcher this year, hands down. The Mets have a quandry - play Alvarez because he is projected as a star or play the better player to try to win games. You can see what they have chosen.
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