Following an injury-riddled 2024 campaign, New York Mets starter Kodai Senga is healthy and ready to re-assume the role of staff ace in the new season.
“I feel good,” Senga said through his translator on Tuesday at the team’s spring training facilities in Port St. Lucie, FL “The offseason was kind of a half-rehab, half-normal type thing, but everything was precisely written out, and I feel really good.”
The 32-year-old right-hander pitched just 5.1 innings last year: He missed the first half of the regular season after picking up a shoulder and triceps injury and then injured his calf while hurling a gem against the Atlanta Braves in late July. He returned in a limited role for the postseason, but could not pitch more than two or three innings per outing.
While it was not a traditional offseason, Senga started the winter by finishing up his rehab, followed by a shutdown period, and then began to build up for the new season.
“I’m not worried at all,” Senga said. “I just need to ramp up slowly, get through spring training healthy, and get through the year healthy… I’m very happy as long as I’m healthy and able to help out this team. This offseason has been really great in terms of evaluating what types of movements I need and don’t need, and I”ve been able to work on that. And I feel really good up to this point, and like I said earlier, just need to ramp up slowly.”
The Mets have been hands-on throughout the past few months. They sent trainers in November to consult with Senga before pitching coach Jeremy Hefner made the trip to collaborate on a plan, not to simply assign him one. That has been the team’s approach since he went down with that shoulder injury during spring training last year.
“We were very open-minded,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “We asked him a lot, he had a lot of input in some of the things he was doing… It will continue to be that way. We feel good with where he’s at. He’ll continue to have a say in his routine and his program and all that, and we’ll continue to make suggestions. It’s a two-way street, and we’ll keep it that way.”
The symbiotic goal is to get Senga back to his 2023 self when he finished second in the National League Rookie of the Year voting and seventh in the Cy Young voting behind a 2.98 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, and 202 strikeouts in 166.1 innings of work. Mendoza has heard all about it. Now, he actually wants to see it.
“Those five innings [in 2024] were electric,” Mendoza said with a smile. “You’re watching him pitch, and you’re like, ‘Man, this is real.’ It means a lot if we have a healthy Senga. You guys saw it in 2023, I saw it briefly last year, and he could be special. What he’s able to do with the baseball, the velo, and he competes. It’ll be huge for the team and it’ll be huge for the rotation, and it’ll be huge for Senga. It was a hard year for him in 2024.”
A healthy Senga provides a legitimate ace to what is expected to be a six-man rotation that has plenty of question marks elsewhere. Sean Manaea re-signed after having a career year in Queens last year, but Frankie Montas is a reclamation project, David Peterson has to prove that last year’s brilliance was not a fluke, Clay Holmes is stretching out from being a closer, and the No. 6 role is up for grabs between Tylor Megill, Griffin Canning, and Paul Blackburn.
