Mets 2025 projections: Sean Manaea

The biggest pitching news of the offseason for the Mets was the re-signing of Sean Manaea to a three-year deal. While the team opted against signing any of the over-30 free agent SP to a deal of five or more years, they were comfortable enough to bring Manaea back to the fold. Was that because they saw what he did first hand? Or was it that three years is the dividing line between worthwhile and unreasonable? We don’t know the answer to that question. What we do know is what the computer models think Manaea will do in 2025:

ATC – 169 IP, 4.04 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, 9.06 K/9, 1.23 HR/9
Marcel – 153 IP, 4.00 ERA, 1.190 WHIP, 9.0 K/9, 1.1 HR/9
OOPSY – 180 IP, 4.09 ERA, 1.28 WHIP, 8.58 K/9, 1.29 HR/9
Steamer – 181 IP, 4.02 ERA, 1.27 WHIP, 9.04 K/9, 1.26 HR/9
ZiPS – 144 IP, 4.31 ERA, 1.236 WHIP, 9.1 K/9, 1.3 HR/9

Well, that’s not overly encouraging.

One thing to keep in mind is that the projection systems take into account what the player has done over the last three seasons and Manaea wasn’t good in two of those. However, he’s the polar opposite of Pete Alonso, who was good three years ago and then followed up with two sub-par seasons. And with Manaea being good in the most recent year, he got the three-year deal with a higher AAV than what the Mets offered Alonso.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Marcel is the simplest system out there, the ones that the other models are looking to beat. And for the most part, the other forecasts are more bearish than Marcel on the prospects for Manaea in 2025. My opinion is that the forecasts for Manaea above make sense. But that doesn’t mean they’re right.

We know that Manaea turned things around in 2023 when he added a sweeper to his arsenal. And then there’s the conventional wisdom that Manaea made a big leap forward last year when he changed his arm angle. But those two things are not alike. We have proof that the sweeper made a big impact in ’23. And we have a great narrative about the arm angle in ‘24. But here are two stat lines of consecutive stretches for Manaea last year, one before the arm angle change and one after:

Stretch A: 2.98 ERA, .629 OPS against, 1.125 WHIP
Stretch B: 3.09 ERA, .538 OPS against, 0.846 WHIP

Both of these are pretty good lines. You might prefer the second one, as it contains the lower OPS and WHIP. But you’d gladly sign on the dotted line for Manaea to post the first line here in 2025. And that’s what Manaea did in eight starts before the arm angle change.

Manaea had five bad starts last year, with Game Scores between 16 and 37. As you probably know, the Game Score metric was designed so that an average start is 50. So, Manaea was well below that in these five appearances, three of which came before the arm angle change and two afterwards.

The thing is that two of Manaea’s poor starts early in the year happened in back-to-back outings. And the eight starts highlighted above in Stretch A is what he did after getting knocked around in those two starts. Before those consecutive clunkers, Manaea had 10 starts with a 3.18 ERA, a .643 OPS against and a 1.286 WHIP. In 32 starts last year, Manaea was average or better in 27 of them. And while he did post slightly better numbers after making the adjustment, he was – for the most part – pitching quite well before that, too.

The one thing that worries me about Manaea is how he gave up more HR in the second half of the year. Before the All-Star break, Manaea had a 0.84 HR/9 and afterwards he had a 1.06 rate. And he gave up 2 HR in 7 IP in his last start of the first half.

The HR issue is a much bigger worry for me than what he did in 2022 before the sweeper. How he fares in this department will be a big factor in the numbers he produces this year. Here’s my totally biased forecast for Manaea:

170 IP, 3.70 ERA, 1.155 WHIP, 9.3 K/9, 1.06 HR/9

You’ll have more credibility if you weigh in now with what you think Manaea will do this year. All predictions for him are welcome, although the ones that use the same five categories as the article make me smile.