Who is truly to blame for the injuries and underperformance of the bullpen?
Plus, trade buzz around Kodai Senga and two more Japanese players have been posted for MLB free agency.
What’s up with the Mets? 🍎
Former Met Adam Ottavino harshly criticized Carlos Mendoza’s bullpen usage last season (NY Post)
Former Met Bobby M. Jones will be the manager of the New Jersey Jackals in the Frontier League for the 2026 season (Bergen Record)
The numbers suggest Carlos Beltrán deserves to be in the Hall of Fame and should be elected this year (Fangraphs)
Mets owner Steve Cohen sold an 18-karat gold toilet for $12.1 million (USA Today)
Rumor Mill 🔎
The Mets are reportedly planning to non-tender LHP Danny Young (SNY)
While the Tigers could trade Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal there is some debate about whether or not they should (Athletic) | (ESPN)
Infielder Kazuma Okamoto and RHP Kona Takahashi of the Saitama Seibu Lions have both been posted for MLB free agency by their respective Nippon Professional Baseball club (MLB.com)
The Just Mets Podcast 🎙️
Pat Ragazzo, Sports Illustrated reporter, joins a bonus episode of The Just Mets Podcast to talk about Cody Bellinger, Pete Alonso, and an “extreme” offseason ahead.
Is Carlos Mendoza to blame for the team’s bullpen problems? ✍️
Former Met reliever Adam Ottavino has opened Pandora’s Box on the Mets bullpen usage, to say the least, not holding back when it came to Carlos Mendoza’s handling of his relievers, saying, among other things, “I think he has no idea what he’s doing when it comes to bullpen guys and how to keep them healthy or even how to care about them at all.”
There could be some merit to Ottavino’s criticisms.
As a whole, the team’s bullpen pitched 636.0 innings, which was the third-most in the league behind only the Dodgers and White Sox. A potential consequence contained in those innings was that Danny Young, Max Kranick, Tylor Megill, Reed Garrett, and Dedniel Núñez all needed Tommy John Surgery and/or the internal brace to repair sprained UCLs.
That alone could be a damning indictment of Mendoza. The bullpen was unquestionably overtaxed and asked to pitch a ton of innings. However, that might not be totally on Mendoza’s shoulders alone.
In 2025, Mets starters pitched 796.0 innings, which was 27th in the league. The Dodgers, Rockies, and White Sox starters are the only teams who pitched fewer innings than the Mets starters. This was due to Clay Holmes’s first season as a starter and their need to limit his innings, combined with injuries and underperformance from Kodai Senga, Sean Manaea, Tylor Megill, Griffin Canning, Frankie Montas, and David Peterson. Because of all of that, it was often a miracle if the Mets got more than four or five innings from their starter, and an even bigger miracle if there were any quality innings (for the most part) contained therein. That left the bullpen tasked with pitching far too many innings on almost a daily basis, which in turn helped lead to some of these major arm injuries.
Sure, there was some questionable usage of that bullpen, and there was a lot of repeated usage of pitchers, which leads to stress, fatigue, and eventual injury as well.
By the end of the year, it stood to reason why Mendoza kept going to the same arms over and over again as well. With the playoffs slipping away, they were in must-win situations every single night, and there were only a couple of reliable arms in the pen he could go to when the starter exited early. A fragile, unreliable rotation, combined with losing ballgames, is ultimately what doomed the bullpen. They were overworked and had a revolving door of arms that were summoned from Triple-A and then sent back down.
One could and probably should argue that in fact, this season’s failures rest more on David Stearns’s shoulders rather than Mendoza’s when it comes to the pitching.
In 2024, under Mendoza, the bullpen pitched only 549.2 innings, which was 26th in the league, so what transpired in 2025 is not necessarily an indicator of how he will manage a bullpen in 2026. They need better relievers, but they also need better starters who can provide more innings and more competitive innings so to protect the bullpen more. It’s clear Stearns and the front office recognize the failures from last year with the rotation and realize that is not a tenable situation going forward, hence all the buzz around the Mets being interested in top-shelf starting pitching.
How that all shapes up remains to be seen, but certainly, pinning the injuries of their pitchers on Mendoza entirely isn’t really fair. He didn’t build the roster - he can only use it the way it’s designed to be used, and when he can’t, well, here we are.
Around the League 🚩
The Phillies signed OF Bryan De La Cruz to a minor league contract (MLB Trade Rumors)
The Mariners will retire Randy Johnson’s no. 51 in 2026 (MLB.com)
I’m no fan of Mendoza. He manages just Boone for the Yankees. He changes the line up for no apparent reason and sits guys when they are hot to “get guys in”. It’s why many had an up and down year. The young kids never stood a chance to be productive which it’s a miracle Baty had the year he did with Vientos given all the time he had to play as they kept trying to get him going which was an epic failure. The Mets firing everyone but him was a bullshit move too. In real baseball days if the team underperformed it was the managers head that rolled along with the rest. Keeping him offers what exactly? Unless this really shows what he is. A figure head who takes orders from Stearns and the only thing he does is copy the line up card given to him and if that is the case then Stearns is worse than we all thought. This team better win this next season because I’ll be moving close to Nashville within 2/3 years and if they get a baseball team I’ll be throwing my allegiance to them as Nashville will have all the teams I’m interested in. Football,Hockey,& Baseball. It’s super simple to navigate to every venue plus those teams probably have a better chance of winning a championship than all these NY teams combined. This past season was unacceptable. I posted it on Cohen’s twitter last night. He better step in and keep both Diaz and Pete if he doesn’t want a fan revolt after he called the fans out for attendance and gets rewarded with record attendance and this is what they gave us.
I think Mendoza and Jeremy Hefner equally deserve blame. Together, they coddled the starters, beginning with Senga, instead of pushing them to get through tough spots. The starters became comfortable knowing they would get pulled, at the first sign of trouble. I don't recall a single starting pitcher displaying anger or frustration over getting an early hook. That's a problem right there.
I'm reminded of the story I've told ad nauseum about one of David Cone's earliest starts as a Met in 1987. In a late April game against the Houston Astros, on a cold rainy night, Cone was getting rocked by the 'Stros, having given up 5 runs through the first two innings. In the third, Davey Johnson came out to the mound. Cone, who thought Johnson was going to pull him was shocked when he said "I don't care if your arm falls off, you're giving me five innings tonight!". Cone would give up another two runs, but got through five innings that night. Cone, who has told that story for years, often credits that experience for making him a better major league pitcher.
That's the kind of "tough love" Mendoza and Hefner needed to give to their staff. It wasn't fair to the bullpen or the team for the starters to consistently fail night after night.