After missing the playoffs this year, the Mets are poised to aggressively shake up their pitching staff this winter. Their starters posted a 4.13 ERA this year, good for just 18th in baseball, and that’s in part due to the cautious approach they took to building their staff last year.
After spending a massive amount to lure Juan Soto to Queens, president of baseball operations David Stearns seemed reluctant to engage the top free agent starters too aggressively and wound up focusing on mid-level and bounceback arms instead. Clay Holmes converted from the bullpen to the rotation, New York took a flier on Frankie Montas after a weak 2024, and the big addition was a reunion with Sean Manaea. The strategy did not work out. Holmes did fine, turning in a solid mid-rotation performance, but Montas barely pitched and turned in atrocious results when he did, while Manaea was limited to just 15 appearances and was moved to the bullpen late in the year amid his own struggles.
On paper, the Mets head into the offseason with a full rotation for 2026: Holmes, Manaea, and right-hander Kodai Senga are all under contract, and controllable arms like David Peterson, Nolan McLean, Jonah Tong, and Brandon Sproat give the team more than enough arms to fill out a rotation. McLean is widely viewed as a front-of-the-rotation caliber arm, but relying on him to be an ace after just eight MLB starts would be risky. Tong and Sproat are even less established with lower ceilings, and each of Holmes, Manaea, and Peterson fit better in the middle to back of a team’s rotation.
Aside from McLean, Senga has the highest ceiling of all the club’s starting pitching options. In 52 starts with the Mets over the past three years, he’s pitched to a 3.00 ERA and a 3.82 FIP with a 26.8% strikeout rate. Those are generally quite impressive numbers, and on paper it might seem like the Mets can count on McLean and Senga as a potential front-of-the-rotation duo for next year.
That only appears to be the case on paper, however. After a strong rookie season in the majors, Senga missed all but one start in 2024 due to shoulder and calf issues. He returned to the mound in 2025 and looked like his old self early on, with a 1.47 ERA and 3.24 FIP across 73 2/3 innings of work through mid-June. He missed a month due to a hamstring strain that brought that stretch to an end, however, and when he returned he looked like a shell of himself. He pitched to a 5.90 ERA with a 5.76 FIP across his final nine appearances of the year, struck out just 20.6% of his opponents, and walked 12.7%. He pitched into the sixth inning just once in that time, and failed to finish the fifth inning in six of those starts.
Things got bad enough for Senga that he was optioned to Triple-A in early September, a move that he consented to. Even at the club’s Syracuse affiliate, he struggled to a 4.66 ERA across two starts before his season came to a close in mid-September. Last month, MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo indicated that the Mets don’t know what to expect from Senga in 2026. Even if they had made the playoffs, Senga would’ve only been activated to the playoff roster if the club suffered multiple injuries to the rotation. It’s harder to know if a pitcher who will be 33 in January will bounce back than it would be for a younger arm, as well. Stearns’s postseason words on Senga weren’t exactly a vote of confidence, either:
“Kodai has had two very inconsistent, challenging years in a row,” Stearns said, as relayed by DiComo. “We know it’s in there. We know there’s potential. We’re going to do everything we can to help get it out of him. But look, can we put him in ink as making 30 starts next year? I think that would be foolish.”
So, with more starting pitchers than they have spots for and a desire to bring in more surefire options, would the Mets entertain a trade for Senga? It’s possible that a change of scenery could make sense for both sides. Senga could prefer to get a fresh start in 2026 with a club that can offer him a more reliable rotation spot than the Mets might be able to, and New York might see a trade as a way to bolster their pipeline of young talent during an offseason where they might look to get aggressive on the trade market to improve the rotation.
The Mets haven’t been a team concerned with posting sky-high payrolls under Steve Cohen, but if they do have a desire to cut payroll to a less extreme level this winter, then parting with a $15MM hit in luxury tax dollars could be attractive as well. On the other hand, Senga’s potential would be hard to part with. He’s clearly shown himself capable of being a front-of-the-rotation caliber arm as recently as the first half of this season. If the right-hander manages to get back on track elsewhere, it would be a tough pill for the Mets to swallow.
While Senga’s deep struggles and uncertain future might make the Mets willing to listen to offers on Senga, his potential might lead them to keep the asking price for his services quite high. Perhaps there’s a deal to be worked out with a team willing to bet on Senga and surrender a controllable position player at an area of need for the Mets, like first base or center field. The Red Sox stand out as one intriguing fit given Triston Casas’s own uncertain future and high upside, not to mention the rumblings that have connected Boston to Mets slugger Pete Alonso in free agency.
How do MLBTR readers think the Mets will approach Senga this offseason? Will they look to keep him in the fold, even as he approaches his mid-30s with no guarantees he’ll bounce back? Or could they look to move him this winter to bolster the roster in other areas and avoid that risk? Have your say in the poll below:
