2 NY Mets players whose late collapse is a red flag moving forward, 2 whose isn't

Sean Manaea still has gas left in the tank

The Mets re-signed Sean Manaea to a three-year contract last offseason after he became a rotation anchor in 2024. However, an oblique strain plus a setback led to Manaea not making his 2025 debut until July 13. When he made his way back to the mound, he looked like he was picking up where he left off. Through his first 17.1 innings and four appearances, Manaea only allowed four earned runs with 22 K’s and four walks.

Manaea would end up pitching 43.1 more innings from the start of August onwards, but the results were definitely not pretty. The veteran left-hander owned a 7.06 ERA, 4.96 FIP, and 1.36 WHIP. Most of his struggles can be traced back to the long ball. Manaea allowed 2.28 home runs per nine innings on average while having an unimpressive 9.4% barrel rate and 90.7 MPH exit velocity.

So what’s the difference between Manaea and Senga? After all, Manea is a year older, also struggled to stay healthy, and arguably struggled just as severely as Senga did. The first thing is that Manaea’s pitch quality is still good. Stuff+ pinned him at 103 in August and September, a step forward from the 98 mark he had in 2024. Manaea was still fooling opponents, with an out-of-zone swing rate of 31.1% and an overall whiff rate of 24.9%. His 23.1% K%-BB% was the 11th best in baseball among all pitchers with at least 40 frames during the final two months of the season, and tied with likely AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal. Overall, he had a 27.2% strikeout rate and a 4.1% walk rate. Other numbers point to this being a small sample size fluke. Manaea may have been home run-prone, but that’s not an oddity for his career. His 22% HR:FB ratio is likely unsustainable over a larger sample size, as indicated by his career 12.9% ratio. He had both a 3.50 SIERA and 3.59 xFIP during the final two months of 2025. 

Many of Manaea’s struggles can be chalked up to a small sample size, where his numbers would likely come back down to Earth if he played more. A typical offseason and Spring Training should be all Manaea needs to get back into the groove in 2026. He should definitely be given another chance with the Mets next year in their starting rotation.