There is still significant risk in the Mets‘ starting rotation, considering the championship expectations for the 2025 season, but by re-signing Sean Manaea they have added front-of-the-rotation dominance that could prove crucial for them.
So while Roki Sasaki looms as a wild card bonus, should the Japanese phenom decide to sign with the Mets despite so much speculation that he prefers the Dodgers or Padres, David Stearns likely only has one major move to make this a successful offseason:
Get a deal done with Pete Alonso.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t work to be done in strengthening the bullpen or adding another bat as at least part of a fit for the DH role. It’s just that Stearns doesn’t seem likely to spend big for those roles.
In that sense, Alonso is the big missing piece.
The addition of Juan Soto makes Alonso an especially good fit, and a necessary one as well. Soto obviously takes a big part of the offensive load off Alonso, and perhaps some of the pressure that seemed to affect the first baseman last season in his walk year. Yet Alonso’s power bat is important to add some protection and production behind the Mets’ new superstar right fielder.
Clearly the Mets don’t want to overpay for Alonso, and in that sense, their patience seems to be working for them, as the first base market has shrunk dramatically in the last several days with the signings of Christian Walker, Carlos Santana, and Paul Goldschmidt by various teams, all of them at lower-than-expected prices.
As such, Alonso seems to be running out of options. The team with the most obvious need for power, the Mariners, reportedly have major budget restrictions, while the Nationals just traded for Nathaniel Lowe.
The Giants remain a possibility after trying to sign Goldschmidt, but the fact that they lost out on the veteran first baseman to the Yankees on a one-year deal tells you they’re not likely to spend big on Alonso.
“It’s looking like Pete overplayed his hand,” one major league scout told me on Monday. “Teams aren’t willing to invest long-term in any big way for a right-handed-hitting first baseman in his 30s, especially coming off a so-so year.
“He should have taken the Mets offer a year ago (reportedly seven years, $158 million during the 2023 season). Now he’s in a bad spot because (Scott) Boras probably told him he’d get X amount of years and dollars, and when those offers aren’t there we all know Scott’s strategy is to play the waiting game, even though it backfired on him last winter.”
More to the point, that strategy backfired on the likes of Blake Snell, Jordan Montgomery, Matt Chapman, and Cody Bellinger, all of whom waited forever and had to settle for short-term deals.
So the Mets seem to be in a good spot to take advantage of the market, but waiting is also a gamble for them as there is no other obvious choice for an impact bat at first base.
They could move Mark Vientos across the diamonds and sign Alex Bregman to play third base, but he’s looking for a long-term deal and his numbers have declined the last couple of years — plus his power wouldn’t play nearly as well at Citi Field as it did in the Astros’ ballpark with its short left-field porch.
Last winter, Stearns waited and waited to sign J.D. Martinez and finally got him on something of a bargain contract. But there is more at stake here with Alonso, especially considering the expectations for the 2025 Mets.
So we’ll see.
In a relatively short period of time, Stearns has earned the trust of Mets fans, based on what he did with the roster last year, in particular getting the most out of Manaea and Luis Severino.
And they’re going to have to trust that his pitching lab can get the most out of Frankie Montas, Clay Holmes, and Griffin Canning, their free agent signings this winter.
They’re all projects in one sense or another, while Kodai Senga, their No. 1 starter in 2023, missed almost all of last season with shoulder and calf injuries.
All of that is what made re-signing Manaea so vital. And getting him for three years and $75 million, with significant deferred money, is a very good deal in a market that has had high prices for starting pitching.
Based on what others were getting, in fact, it appeared the Mets might have to go to four years to keep Manaea, even entering his age-33 season. So perhaps the strong preference he voiced to stay in Queens helped limit the term, even if $25 million a year is still a leap of faith for a pitcher with a very inconsistent track record in the majors.
The difference now, of course, is the dramatic change Manaea made with his delivery at midseason, lowering his arm angle to emulate Chris Sale. With the more sidearm-like delivery, he became one of the most dominant starters in the majors over the final three months of the season, as his fastball became a swing-and-miss pitch at the top of the strike zone.
As such, there is a consensus among scouts and executive I’ve spoken to this offseason that Manaea should be able to sustain his new-found dominance.
“There’s deception that’s real because of the lower arm angle,” said one scout. “The ball gets on hitters faster than their eyes are telling them. There will be some adjustments that hitters make, but he has other weapons that they have to honor as well.”
Adding Walker Buehler, who signed a one-year deal with the Red Sox on Monday, would have been a nice move as well, but barring the signing of Sasaki, Stearns may well be done adding notable starters.
As it is, with the likelihood the Mets will use a six-man rotation in 2025, they have nine potential starters: Senga, Manaea, David Peterson, Montas, Holmes, Canning, Paul Blackburn, Jose Butto, and Tylor Megill.
They also have a couple of high-ceiling pitching prospects — Brandon Sproat and Blade Tidwell — who both stalled at the Triple-A level in 2024 but could be ready to help at the big league level at some point next season.
The bullpen still needs to be addressed, and while I think it would be smart to spend on an elite late-inning reliever like Kirby Yates, Stearns again has earned the trust to find value in lesser-known names.
More significantly, for the moment, he recognized the importance of bringing back Manaea.
Now it’s equally important he does the same with Alonso.
