A notable report explains how the New York Mets hope to get key members of their rotation back to a consistent high-impact level for the 2026 MLB season.
Over the first half of last season, the NY Mets’ rotation looked like one of the best in baseball. Kodai Senga looked healthy and was again pitching like an All-Star. Former New York Yankees closer Clay Holmes was proving that he can be a difference-maker as a starter. While David Peterson elevated his game to a new level and earned All-Star honors for the first time.
However, down the stretch of the 2025 campaign, it all fell apart. Senga’s ongoing injury woes returned, and when he got back on the mound, he was a shell of his former self. Both Holmes and Peterson hit walls after reaching new innings heights for their career. And making matters worse is when Sean Manaea — a huge standout in 2024 — returned to action after a pair of injuries and pitched to a near 6.00 ERA.
The performance of the NY Mets’ veteran pitchers in August and September is why they had a historic collapse, missed the playoffs, and popular pitching coach Jeremy Hefner was fired. Getting those men right is a top priority for the club’s new pitching coach, Justin Willard. And the 35-year-old former Boston Red Sox director of pitching has some ideas in mind to fix them.
Kodai Senga
Obviously, a key for Senga is staying healthy. But when he is on the field, strong velocity on his fastball is a must. That was missing when he struggled mightily late last season before being demoted. According to conversations Willard had with The Athletic’s Will Sammon, the Japanese pitcher is a “very visual learner.”
So, the coach has put together videos showcasing Senga at his best, and that was as a “power pitcher” in 2023 and 2024. Thus far in training camp, NY Mets officials have noticed an uptick in Senga’s fastball velocity and an “intensity” to improve it that is very “intentional.”
Sean Manaea
Manaea was such an important part of the NY Mets staff in the second half of the 2024 season and pitched like an ace down the stretch. That is why his return a few months into the 2025 season was so highly anticipated. However, according to Sammon’s report, last year the veteran pitcher went further with the changes he made to his throwing angle in 2024, and it backfired.
Along with feeling healthy, Manaea worked with Tread Athletics, a private pitching facility, to address his throwing style this offseason and is reportedly back to what he was doing two years ago. If he can get back to that pitcher this year, he could make a huge impact as a back-end of the rotation arm.
David Peterson
The Sammon report notes that Peterson is not making any changes to his repertoire of pitches. His problem in 2025 is that he hit a wall when he threw 168.2 innings. His previous career high was 121 innings. So, obviously, being better prepared for the marathon MLB seasons is a top priority of Peterson and Willard.
However, the pitching coach also hopes to improve his performance against right-handers. Peterson had a .564 OPS against lefties but a .742 OPS against righties. The idea seems to be that if he can have fewer and easier pitches against righties, that will give him more length in games and over the duration of the season.
Clay Holmes
Holmes struggled against lefties last season and gave up more walks to batters on that side of the plate. He also had issues getting deeper into games after teams started loading up on lefties later in the season. To address those issues, Sammon’s report reveals Holmes and the coach will experiment with his pitches. That could include bringing back one he stopped using in 2021.
“Experimenting with a curveball is just one possibility. Holmes used to throw a curveball. According to pitch-tracking sites like Baseball Savant, he ditched the pitch after the 2021 season. He might reintroduce the pitch or use his existing pitches differently. For instance, he could throw his cutter (effective against left-handed batters) or his sinker (his best overall offering) more often,” Sammon wrote.
