Can Mets fans count on Kodai Senga, or should they count him out? | The Mets Pod
On The Mets Pod, Connor Rogers and Joe DeMayo look at the successful spring perfromance so far for Kodai Senga, and how he could be so valuable to the Mets starting rotation if he can finally stay healthy and "comfortable."
Video Transcript
I know it always comes with the, "Well, let's see how long this lasts with Kodai Senga," but the bottom line is how quickly, and I'm guilty of this, it's easy to forget that he had a sub two ERA the first half of last season.
You look at him in the spring, the fastball is 96, 97.
The stuff is typical Kodai Senga strikeout stuff.
It would be phenomenal for this team, Joe, if Senga gets back to the form that we know he has and can somehow avoid the injury bug, because he looks, for all-- how rough Minaya looks under the hood and sometimes just in the box score, Senga is all the way the other, the opposite right now.
Senga, it purely comes down to health and comfort, and that's usually not a word that I use, with Major League pitchers.
Like, health, obviously, it goes without saying.
Senga has had health issues throughout his Mets tenure, and, obviously the hamstring last year, things didn't come back afterwards because there was a lack of comfort for him within his mechanics, and the stuff wasn't quite right.
But this spring, he looks like the Kodai Senga that looks better than the Kodai Senga that dominated 2025.
Yeah, he does.
Look, looks like the Kodai Senga that when he first came over, it was just like, oh boy, the Mets, really found something with him.
The fastball's been up to 99 miles an hour.
The ghost fork is forking.
He's even throwing in, like, E-fist 67 mile an hour curve balls.
If Kodai Senga can just stay on the mound and continue to be comfortable within his mechanics, there's no reason why the Mets don't have a three-headed monster in their rotation with Freddy Peralta, Noah McLean, and Kodai Senga.
And you know what they say, Connor, sometimes the best deals are the ones you don't make.
So good thing that the Mets just didn't end up just dumping Kodai Senga on some team for a prospect just to get the, quote unquote, lack, for lack of a better term, headache that comes along with all the mechanical things that he deals with.
I think it'll prove out pretty good for the Mets to be hanging on to Kodai for 2026.
