Grading the Mets' rotation for 2025 MLB season
Mets pitcher Kodai Senga during a spring training workout. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — David Stearns does not hate, in absolute terms, big-money, long-term contracts for pitchers. He really doesn’t, he insists. But he does believe in “philosophies,” he said, in which those types of deals make sense only under specific circumstances — circumstances that have not presented themselves to the Mets in recent years.
So heading into Stearns’ second season as the Mets’ president of baseball operations, the rotation again appears ace-less. The team did not seriously pursue any of the best pitchers on the free-agent market over the offseason. Instead, they went with a depth-over-ceiling approach, bringing in a bunch of cheaper arms.
A year after the Mets helped multiple pitchers maximize their talents — squeezing out of them good-to-amazing seasons when grading on a curve — they will try to do that again with the likes of Clay Holmes, Frankie Montas, Griffin Canning and Paul Blackburn.
“I feel much better about our starting pitching depth sitting here today than I did a year ago,” Stearns said at the start of spring training.
The top five starters are Kodai Senga, Sean Manaea, David Peterson, Holmes and Montas. Manaea (right oblique strain) and Montas (right lat strain) will miss the beginning of the season because of injuries, making room for two of Canning, Blackburn and Tylor Megill.
After pitching coach Jeremy Hefner & Co. worked minor baseball miracles in 2024, especially in the second half amid the Mets’ playoff push, they will need more of that voodoo with this motley crew. And by voodoo we mean technology-aided coaching and hard work plus good fortune.
Senga might return to his All-Star 2023 form, or he might suffer more of the health issues that made him an enigma in 2024. Manaea and Peterson might match or improve upon their career years, or they might regress to who they were previously. Holmes might be the next Seth Lugo/Michael King with a successful transition from the bullpen, or he might break under the burden of a much larger workload.
If several of those question marks become exclamation points, the Mets should solidify themselves as a playoff team. If not, the season would be at risk.
The wild cards are top prospects Brandon Sproat and Blade Tidwell, who loom as midseason options — perhaps upgrades — if they prove able in Triple-A.
“I think our pitching,” owner Steve Cohen said, “is going to surprise people.”
GRADE: C+
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
More New York Sports
