Had we written about Sean Manaea’s upcoming season earlier in spring training, the premise would’ve been a bit more straightforward. Coming off a season that saw him spend more time on the injured list than on the mound, Manaea would be looking to be healthy and bounce back from a 2025 season that saw him finish with a 5.64 ERA.
That’s still true, of course, but with the Mets having set their rotation for the beginning of the 2026 season, Manaea isn’t in it. Instead, the 34-year-old lefty will begin the year as the second part of a piggyback plan that will see him pitch multiple innings in relief of one or more of the Mets’ five starting pitchers. Assuming everyone stays healthy, he’ll presumably slot into the Mets’ rotation if and when the team deploys a six-man rotation.
Velocity is of concern, at least from our perspective as fans. Both Manaea and Mets manager Carlos Mendoza insist that they aren’t concerned about a fastball that’s averaged 88 miles per hour in spring training games. Having averaged just shy of 93 miles per hour with the fastball in his first season with the Mets in 2024 per Brooks Baseball, Manaea saw the pitch dip a bit to 91.5 miles per hour last year as he pitched through a loose body issue in his pitching elbow.
When the offseason began, surgery was one of the options on the table for Manaea, but he opted not to have surgery and came into camp feeling good. And in the innings Grapefruit League innings he threw, he managed a 3.72 ERA, albeit with a 5.11 FIP thanks to the pair of home runs he gave up in just 9.2 innings of work.
Of the projections published at FanGraphs, a couple have Manaea with a sub-4.00 ERA this season, but the general consensus projects a low-4s ERA in about 125 innings of work. That certainly wouldn’t be what the Mets were hoping to see when they inked Manaea to a three-year, $75 million deal coming off his incredible second half of the 2024 season, but it would still be helpful to the team.
If his velocity doesn’t come back and he struggles like he did last year, well, that’d be a bummer for Mets fans. We’ll have to wait and see what happens in relatively sparse outings early in the season. And if those appearances go reasonably well, Manaea might get his first start of the season during the Mets’ first full home stand of the year as the team hosts the Diamondbacks and A’s from April 7 to 12 before flying to Los Angeles for three games against the Dodgers without an off day in between.
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