Nolan McLean’s goal at NY Mets spring training ignores his one weakness from 2025

It was Nolan McLean’s turn to take early spring training softball questions. There was no “who are you wearing?” like there would be on a red carpet event. For a pitcher at New York Mets spring training, the question is always about goals.

Jonah Tong had a very “let the chips fall where they may” mentality with his role. McLean, understanding his role as a stud at the top of the rotation immediately, has some more specific goals.

Working on pitches and improving wherever he can is a good answer. He wants to work on his changeup and cutter. What about his weakest pitch in 2025? It didn’t even get a mention.

Nolan McLean’s sweeper was by far his least effective pitch, so what’s the plan there?

McLean didn’t throw his changeup and cutter a ton in the big leagues, 64 and 63 times respectively. His sinker was thrown 206 times with his sweeper clocking in at 190.

It’s that pesky sweeper which caused most of his problems. Batters hit .361 against it with a 20.3% whiff rate. While batters whiffed at a 50% rate on his curveball and even a 30.3% and 30% on the changeup and cutter, it was his sweeper that didn’t seem to have the effect he wanted.

The changeup was actually really good for him, yielding a .143 batting average against. None of those hits went for extras. The sweeper resulted in a pair of home runs and was used only 6 times to strike a batter out. That’s not a big deal. It’s about the journey to the strikeout which was actually most strongest with the changeup at a 36% putaway rate.

Fine-tuning his lesser pitches will be important for McLean. But what’s the plan with the sweeper?

Newly hired pitching coach Justin Willard may be able to help at least a little bit. Garrett Crochet’s sweeper was one of the best in baseball last year. Dustin May, a fellow Boston Red Sox pitcher in 2025, had a positive run value there, too. Mets pitchers like Clay Holmes and Sean Manaea didn’t, even though did have only a .218 batting average against him on that particular pitch.

Either way, it does seem like McLean has more than two pitches to work on. Using this pair more and trusting them to continue to get better might be the real goal while possibly limiting the sweeper usage or finding a way to improve it. He’s far too talented to let one pitch become a problem. It’s not as easy as to just throw what works. The mind game of pitching in the big leagues is important to win, too.

Yusei Kikuchi is someone who actually had a good sweeper and dropped it from his repertoire because it was having a negative effect on other pitches. McLean is in a different position. Maybe a conclusion down the road is to improve the changeup and cutter while reducing the sweeper usage and make those weapons even more nuclear.