Mets Success May Ride on Kodai Senga

Not be overdramatic or anything.

Image credit: Roberto Carlo

A whole lot is riding on the right arm of Kodai Senga this season. Not to be too overdramatic, but the New York Mets’ season could be directly determined by how effective, healthy, and consistent the 32-year-old hurler is in 2025.

Mets manager Carlos Mendoza told reporters early in camp that he wasn’t necessarily concerned with Senga being an All-Star level starter (which he absolutely can be when he’s right), “he just needs to be healthy,” he insisted.

“He doesn’t have to be the hero, like he’s the ace of the staff,” Mendoza said. “I think it just comes down to, ‘get ready for the year, get ready for the season, help us win baseball games,’ and you’re gonna be able to do that if you can take the baseball every time we ask you to.”

That’s not asking a lot if Senga is indeed healthy and back at top form. Though, the Mets could sure use him at his pinnacle early and often considering the current state of their rotation.

Besides being a bit of a patchwork-quilt situation overall—which is fine; it worked OK last year—the early losses of Frankie Montas (lat) and Sean Manaea (oblique) have left fans clamoring for external additions while simultaneously freaking out that Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns didn’t do enough. Time will tell, won’t it?

Senga’s yet to pitch in any Grapefruit League games, with the team opting to keep him ramping up via simulated games and live batting practice (Healey, Newsday), but per all reports, the right-hander is feeling good and on track. That’s nice, but as we know, things can change quickly.

Since the start of 2024, Senga’s battled a litany of physical setbacks. A shoulder capsule strain in camp last year snowballed into a lengthy absence before a major calf strain on July 26 put him back on the shelf.

Tricep soreness during his rehab in September slowed any momentum Senga had built toward a late-regular-season return, and he was obviously not 100% during his brief postseason stint (7 ER, 6 BB, 5 IP). But before the injuries set in—and hopefully, again moving forward—Kodai Senga was showing everyone exactly why his arrival in the US was so well-documented and greatly anticipated.

Over 29 starts during his rookie campaign in 2023, Senga was mostly brilliant. There were command struggles early on, notably 36 free passes allowed over his first 11 starts (57.2 IP), then, after some acclimation, you could start to see his confidence building and repertoire getting sharper, outing by outing. It was tangible growth.

Over his final 18 starts of the season, Senga pitched to a 2.57 ERA with 129 strikeouts and just 41 walks over 108.2 innings of work. A switch had been flipped, and it was beautiful. Oh, and that Ghost Fork got some well-deserved buzz, too.

When all was said and done on Senga’s first year in MLB, he’d put together a sparkling 2.98 ERA (1.22 WHIP) with a 29.1% strikeout rate and 6.8% barrel rate, which was good for sixth in baseball among all pitchers (min. 200 batted ball events; via Statcast).

The four-seamer (.394 SLG in 2023) sets up everything. The Ghost Fork (.146 SLG, 59.5% whiff, +11 run value) works off the fastball. The cutter (.339 SLG, +18 RV) juts inside to righties. The slider (.250 SLG, 39% whiff) strikes fear into the shin bones of lefties. Dastardly.

Entering 2025, this is what we’re all looking forward to. Brilliance personified. Whether it comes to be will be determined in good time. The track record when Kodai Senga is on the field says this should be the expectation: he’s going to come at you with a wide array of heavily deceptive, high-level offerings to get guys out and win ballgames.

His time spent not on the field conjures some feelings, as well. But we’ll cross that bridge if and when we get to it. For now, and especially as the Mets’ rotation works to make themselves whole again, an anchor is needed. For the Mets to make season-long magic in the same vein they did in 2024, Kodai Senga needs to be this anchor.