{"id":323013,"date":"2025-11-30T21:29:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T21:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/323013\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T21:29:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T21:29:07","slug":"kodai-senga-prefers-to-remain-with-mets-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/323013\/","title":{"rendered":"Kodai Senga Prefers To Remain With Mets In 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mets right-hander Kodai Senga<\/a> has indicated to the club that he would prefer to remain in Queens for next season rather than be traded elsewhere this winter, according to a report from Will Sammon of The Athletic<\/a>. Sammon adds, however, that the Mets might still trade him this offseason. Senga\u2019s contract includes a ten-team no-trade clause that gives him limited say over where he can be traded.<\/p>\n

The news is noteworthy given the fact that Senga, 33 in January, is a known trade candidate<\/a> who the Mets have indicated they\u2019re open to offers on and has drawn interest from rival organizations. Sammon notes that some teams don\u2019t view this year\u2019s crop of free agent starters particularly highly, and that lukewarm interest in those arms has led some teams to view Senga as a buy-low candidate worth considering. The right-hander\u2019s appeal is somewhat obvious; he has a career 3.00 ERA and 3.82 FIP across three seasons in this majors, and just this past season offered the Mets with a 3.02 ERA across 22 starts.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s solid production for a starter as it is, and the fact that Senga will make just $28MM over the next two years (with an affordable club option for the 2028 season) figures to make Senga all the more attractive given that last year\u2019s free agent market saw one-year rolls of the dice on veterans with health or age question marks like Alex Cobb<\/a> and Charlie Morton<\/a> cost $15MM. Opportunities to add a potential front-of-the-rotation talent on that affordable of a deal are few and far between, and that\u2019s sure to draw interest from plenty of suitors.<\/p>\n

That shouldn\u2019t be taken to mean there aren\u2019t complicating factors at play, of course. After all, the Mets themselves are in need of top-of-the-rotation impact in their rotation. They wouldn\u2019t consider dealing Senga at this juncture if there wasn\u2019t some cause for concern. Talented and productive as the right-hander clearly is, Senga has been unreliable during his time in Queens. He\u2019s made just 52 starts at the big league level across three seasons after me missed nearly the entire 2024 campaign due to shoulder and calf issues. 2025 saw him battle a hamstring strain that caused him to miss a month of playing time, and he posted a 5.90 ERA in nine starts following his return to the mound before he agreed to be optioned to Triple-A for the remainder of the 2025 season in early September.<\/p>\n

That Senga was pulled from the rotation entirely when the Mets were fighting for their playoff lives suggests a lack of confidence in the righty from Mets personnel, and president of baseball operations David Stearns himself called it \u201cfoolish\u201d\u00a0to count on Senga to make a full slate of starts headed into 2025. There\u2019s an argument to be made that Senga\u2019s issues regarding injuries and inconsistencies are more likely to get worse than improve as he heads into his mid-30s, and a Mets rotation that\u2019s deep in viable options but lacking in reliable impact talent might prefer to use that spot in the rotation on a more reliable free agent or trade acquisition.<\/p>\n

The Mets have already shown this offseason they aren\u2019t afraid to shake up the team\u2019s status quo, shipping out<\/a> long time Met Brandon Nimmo<\/a> in a deal that brought back Marcus Semien<\/a>. Other Mets stalwarts like Jeff McNeil<\/a> are known to be on the trading block as well<\/a>, and after the club\u2019s disappointing 2025 season it seems as though the Mets clubhouse will look very different next year. Whether or not that includes Senga could depend on the specifics of his no-trade list. If the Mets are truly motivated to move on from Senga, they\u2019d surely be able to do so to one of the league\u2019s 20 teams that Senga can\u2019t block a deal to.<\/p>\n

Things might not be that simple, however, as Senga\u2019s upside and value on the market would surely make them hesitant to deal him for an underwhelming return. The team\u2019s on Senga\u2019s no-trade list aren\u2019t presently known, so it\u2019s entirely possible that the clubs most aggressively interested in his services are also ones he can block a deal to. While today\u2019s news of Senga\u2019s preference to stay in New York certainly shouldn\u2019t lead anyone to rule out the possibility of him being dealt, it\u2019s undeniable that it creates at least a possible obstacle to the Mets finding a deal they\u2019re happy with.<\/p>\n

If Senga does stay in Queens, that shouldn\u2019t preclude the club from bringing in another top-of-the-rotation arm. Top prospect Nolan McLean<\/a>, right-hander Clay Holmes<\/a>, southpaw Sean Manaea<\/a>, and lefty David Peterson<\/a> figure to round out the Mets\u2019 rotation alongside Senga as things stand. McLean has options remaining but figures to be a lock for the rotation given his results in 2025 and prospect pedigree. Manaea, Peterson, and Holmes all cannot be optioned to the minors but have experience pitching out of the bullpen, which could create some flexibility if necessary. Trading one of those three could be a plausible solution as well, though none would seem likely to bring back as strong of a return as Senga and Manaea in particular could be difficult to move given his hefty salary and difficult 2025 campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mets right-hander Kodai Senga has indicated to the club that he would prefer to remain in Queens for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[33987,363,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-323013","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-kodai-senga","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}