Mets' Sean Manaea enjoys long ride to becoming unofficial ace of pitching staff
Sean Manaea plays chess — both metaphorically and literally, though he uses his phone for the latter.
He’ll pull up the game when he transfers to the 7 train at Queensboro Plaza and play on the way to Citi Field. He was on the chess team in fourth grade, he explained during his commute Saturday morning, but didn’t really pick it up again until last year. He has plenty of time to concentrate. No one really bothers him when he takes the train, save for the occasional polite interjection. There’s a guy named Kahn (correct spelling undetermined) who says hi about once every three months, so that’s nice.
Manaea said he wants to get to Washington Square Park one day and play the chess masters there, even though anyone who lives in New York knows that’s about as fruitless an endeavor as trying to catch an N train during weekend service changes.
“It’s like [playing] a trainer in Pokemon,” he said. “You gotta get the XP, and if you beat them, you’ve done something cool.”
There’s a lot to unpack there, but it strangely does a decent job of showcasing some of Manaea’s personality — the way he’s adapted to this city and how he went from reclamation project to the unofficial ace of this Mets staff.
You see, once upon a time (well, last season to be exact), Manaea pitched his way out of the Giants’ rotation. His metamorphosis, though, already was in motion: After a tough 2022, he started working with Driveline Baseball pitching lab, introduced a sweeper last year and saw an uptick in velocity.
Manaea was a free agent coming off an uneven season and the Mets saw something special in him. They offered him their only guaranteed multiyear contract of this past offseason: About $14 million for one year plus a second-year player option that Manaea seems likely to reject, given that his success likely will warrant a bigger check.
Mets pitcher Sean Manaea on the 7 train to Mets-Willets Point on Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024. Credit: Ed Quinn
For the first four months, Manaea was fine. His ERA in that span hovered in the high 3s — perfectly acceptable for a middle- to back-end arm — and, pivotally, he took the ball every fifth day. Naturally, he decided to change everything at midseason.
See, Manaea may be laid-back, but he’s not complacent. Here we have a guy who heard that New York is a tough town to play in and decided he wanted the challenge. Live in the suburbs? Nah. Live in the city and take the train. Chess is fun, right? Well, did you know there are guys who make entire livelihoods out of playing on concrete tables in a city park?
Challenge accepted.
So when the Mets faced Chris Sale and Atlanta on July 25, Manaea noticed something interesting. He’d always been told to throw from a higher arm slot, but Sale wasn’t suffering by throwing from a lower angle.
Certainly you can’t change the way you pitch in the last week of July, right?
Challenge accepted.
“Let me try this,” Manaea said. “I feel like naturally, I want to get lower and lower and lower, but for the longest time, it was like, we’ve got to climb higher . . . So that was like an internal battle where I should be having a higher arm slot but naturally I want to get down lower, so when Sale pitched against us, it was like, ‘OK, this guy throws from a super-low angle; why shouldn’t I try that?’ I tried it the next day. It felt good. The sounds it made, the feeling it made in different body parts, it just naturally feels really good.”
It was a (Flushing) Queen’s Gambit, and it paid off.
Since pitching to a season-high 4.19 ERA on July 24, Manaea is 5-1 with a 2.81 ERA. His batting average against in that span is .161 and he has 62 strikeouts in 51 2⁄3 innings.
It turns out that for Manaea, throwing from a lower slot increases the vertical approach angle, which creates a “flatter” fastball, which translates to more swings and misses and a greater margin for error within the strike zone.
“It’s upshooting,” he said of his fastball. “It added a lot more deception . . . From the swings I’ve gotten from hitters, I feel like it’s tough to pick up. I feel like I’m throwing more strikes.”
It couldn’t have come at a better time. The Mets are tied for the third wild-card spot, largely behind a pitching staff that has exceeded expectations.
No one knows where he’s going to be next year, but if there’s a fit in New York, he’s open to a return. He gives the city a “10 of 10.”
“I definitely had a lot of crazy expectations — ‘It’s tough to play in New York; if you do bad, it’s not going to be a fun time,’ ” he said. “But I was like, maybe I’ve just got to lean into this, and if we want to be great, then let’s go take on a hard challenge. I think it’s been kind of like that.
“The New York fan base has definitely been very passionate, which is something I love, but it’s been a pretty fun ride so far.”
There’s plenty more change to come. This playoff push won’t be easy, he’s getting married in the offseason and . . . he’s got a career future to decide.
Given Manaea’s personality, more tweaks to his pitching probably aren’t out of the equation.“That’s one thing at least I’m pretty good at, is change or trying to be adaptable,” he said. “Even if I’ve had success, I feel like there’s room for improvement in some things. I’m not from California, but everyone assumes I’m from California because I feel like I adapted to that kind of lifestyle [when I played there], that way of life. I feel like I’m a New Yorker now.”
If there’s any doubt, ask him about this team, the low expectations going into the season and where they are now.
“Things can get done,” he said. “You’ve just gotta believe.”
You gotta believe, huh? Where have we heard that one before?
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
