The Mets are seriously interested in upgrading their rotation
Plus, buzz on Cody Bellinger/Kyle Tucker, and an incumbent starter who is in limbo
What’s up with the Mets? 🍎
The Mets are “seriously interested” in adding to their rotation - they could still trade for a frontline starter, and could look to sign Framber Valdez if he’d take a shorter-term deal (Athletic)
The Mets and Yankees prefer Cody Bellinger over Kyle Tucker (MLB.com)
Bellinger is the Yankees no. 1 priority, but the Mets are “looming” (USA Today)
The Mets signed INF Christian Arroyo to a minor league contract (NY Post)
Rumor Mill 💨
Kyle Tucker could be faced with taking a shorter-term, high salaried deal (USA Today)
The Phillies are interested in adding right-handed hitting outfielder Randal Grichuk (Athletic)
Baltimore is still searching for starting pitching (Athletic)
The Dodgers and Braves are among the teams showing interest in Milwaukee RHP Freddy Peralta (Athletic)
The Just Mets Podcast 🎙️
On the latest edition of the Just Mets Podcast, Rich MacLeod & Andrew Claudio react to MLB signings from the past week, and go through their "most likely" premonitions for the 2026 Mets season.
SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST: YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify
Where does David Peterson fit in 2026? ✍️
The Mets will head to Port Saint Lucie to kickstart spring training in roughly six weeks, and it’s alarming how much work they still have to do this winter.
The high-profile exiles of several of the organization’s biggest stars have understandably stolen the proverbial thunder from the fanbase, but this still is and was always going to be a starting pitching-focused winter.
After a disastrous and embarrassing 2025 season on the mound, the Mets simply have to get better in that regard, but it remains to be seen how exactly they plan to do that. They have an exciting crop of young starting pitchers led by Nolan McLean and Brandon Sproat, with Jonah Tong and Christian Scott not far behind.
They’ve also got veterans like Sean Manaea, Clay Holmes, and Kodai Senga, all of whom had their moments in 2025, but underperformed in totality. Holmes actually did well overall and the club is very high on him for 2026, but that doesn’t eliminate the questions he still brings to the table as a starting pitcher.
The Mets should make an impactful addition to their rotation this offseason, and I would still imagine one is coming. But as the calendar days tick off one by one, the situation gets more curious by the minute.
If New York were to go with what they have internally, the results could probably be better than they were a year ago. Their veteran hurlers have all delivered excellent Major League seasons in the past, McLean was a revelation following his call-up, and the rest of the young kids are all immensely talented and exciting.
But to me, the one internal piece that is arguably the most intriguing is LHP David Peterson.
The 30-year-old doesn’t seem to fit into either category of starter I’ve just discussed. He’s far too old and experienced to be lumped in with the up-and-coming arms, but yet he doesn’t have nearly the mileage or league-wide gravitas as the club’s veterans.
And yet, you won’t find someone willing to argue against the fact that from start to finish in 2025, Peterson was New York’s best and most consistent starter, and that includes a disappointing finish to that campaign.
He made a career-high 30 starts, finished with a 4.22 ERA that was a little inflated due to a handful of poor September performances and bad defense behind him, set new benchmarks in innings (168.2) and strikeouts (150), and even tossed his first complete-game shutout.
I don’t think it’s a dramatic stretch to say that if the season started tomorrow, Peterson is probably the most deserving of the options to take the ball on opening day.
But that’s assuming he’s still on this team in six weeks.
Earlier reports this winter indicated the Mets were willing to discuss Peterson in trade negotiations. The team’s first-round pick in the 2017 draft is entering the final season of his rookie contract, and he obviously was not drafted by the current regime.
While he earned a trip to his first All-Star game last summer, Peterson is what he is. He’s a steady, reliable middle-of-the-rotation type arm, but is not going to be a star or an ace. But he clearly has value as someone who can competitively take the ball every fifth day and give his team length. Peterson now needs to put a full 162 together in the same calendar year. He obviously hit a wall late in the season in 2025, which a lot of pitchers do when they are pitching in uncharted territory innings wise, but its time for him to take that leap, especially in a rotation that will still come with a lot of question marks.
That said, if David Stearns has already determined he will not re-sign the southpaw this time next year, it would be prudent to at least see if he could be flipped for help in a different area. Though the other side of that is that it will be an increasingly tough sell to deal really the only starter who performed well for this team for the duration of 2025.
Even so, everything has to be on the table to improve this unit, and trading Peterson, or Senga, and moving Holmes back to the bullpen have to be options. I’m sure the team would love to see Sproat, or Tong, or Scott, or hell—all of them, pitch so well in spring training that it would be impossible to leave them off the opening day roster.
There’s always the ever-present possibility that maybe Framber Valdez actually does sign here, or the team actually does pull off a trade for Edward Cabrera or Freddy Peralta.
Peterson, by the way, stands out as a potential option to be going the other way in a trade for either of those guys.
In the end, time will tell how this saga plays out. And the time is growing shorter by the day. But from my perspective, Peterson has been a good pitcher and a good Met, and it’s interesting to see him thrust into somewhat of a state of limbo here as spring training nears.
Around the League 🚩
The Phillies hired Don Mattingly to be their bench coach (Official)
The Royals inked catcher Jorge Alfaro to a minor league deal (Just BB)
Former Met Daniel Vogelbach has been named the Milwaukee Brewers’ hitting coach (Brewers)
What is their rationale behind preferring Bellinger to Tucker? It's Jan 6 & they've done virtually nothing.
Players want to play where they feel welcome and atmospheric situation is calmer