4 contracts that could hold the NY Mets back in 2026 and beyond

The Mets' excitement over Kodai Senga has dissipated way too early into his five-year $75 million contract

Remaining: two years, $30 million, $15 million AAV (conditional club option for 2028 valued at $15 million)

It's always a roll of the dice when a club brings over a highly-touted hurler from Japan, but expectations were sky-high when the Mets landed Kodai Senga and his coveted ghost fork. Apart from the difference in competition and the challenges of cultural adaptation, one of the biggest hurdles these pitchers face is the five-man rotation versus Japan's customary pitch-once-a-week schedule.

In 2023, however, Senga seemed to answer most of those questions. With a 2.98 ERA, 10.93 K/9, and a respectable 44.7% ground ball rate, Senga's 166.1 innings of work sure looked ace-like. But then in 2024, a shoulder capsule injury limited him to just 5.1 innings of regular-season work.

Senga was somewhat injury-prone in Japan, so when the injury bug bit him again in 2025, this time it was the right hamstring that was the culprit; it shouldn't have been a surprise. What was a surprise was his struggles upon his return that required a brief minor league reassignment to work through.

At this point, it's tough to truly tell what the Mets can expect from Senga, both in terms of performance but also availability.

If there's a silver lining, it's that his full no-trade clause expired at the end of the 2025 season. The downside? He can still block a trade to 10 clubs the rest of the way. His $15 million AAV is relatively affordable, and that could make him a somewhat valuable change-of-scenery trade chip, but with him able to block deals to a third of the league, that's not an easy maneuver to pull off.

At the end of the day, we're three years into the Kodai Senga experience, and he's still just as much of an enigma as he was when he first landed in Queens.