by The New York Yankees are dealing with several issues to start their season. Gerrit Cole, the team’s ace, will be sidelined for the entire 2025 campaign, and will likely miss parts of 2026 after requiring Tommy John surgery. Slugger Giancarlo Stanton’s elbows have him on the sidelines for the foreseeable future, and 2024 AL Rookie of the Year Luis Gil will also be unavailable, perhaps until June, with an oblique injury. Another starting pitcher, Clarke Schmidt, will start the season on the injured list with right shoulder fatigue, while bullpen arms Jonathan Loáisiga (UCL), Ian Hamilton (infection), and Scott Effros (hamstring) are still weeks, and in some cases. months, away from contributing.
On a positive note, the door has been opened for veteran right-hander Carlos Carrasco to join the rotation. Carrasco has been hurt off and on the past few years, pitching to an unsightly 5.32 ERA for the Mets and Guardians. But he impressed the Yankees this spring, allowing just three runs on eight hits in 16 innings while striking out 15. He relied mostly on a sinker and spotting his fastball, the latter pitch being his major weakness as he tried to regain the form that made him the reliable starter he was in 2022 (15-7, 3.97 ERA) for the Mets.
The Yankees don’t need Carrasco to replace Cole, but they do need him to provide some stability at the bottom of the rotation. Is he the key to the Yankees repeating as AL champions? No, or course not. But if he can pitch effectively in the No. 5 spot, it will be a major boost for the Yankees. Firstly, trading for pitching is far more expensive, and the Yankees will likely need to hold on to as many of its assets until the trading deadline, especially if Stanton or the bullpen arms aren’t ready for the postseason push.
For the Mets, most experts are picking either the Atlanta Braves or the Philadelphia Phillies to win the NL East. Even with the addition of Juan Soto to the lineup, the prognosticators are looking at the Mets’ pitching rotation as the main reason why they may only be a wildcard team in 2025.
Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns stayed away from big-ticket SPs this offseason, focusing on reclamation projects or lightning-in-a-bottle candidates like former Yankees closer Clay Holmes, Frankie Montas, and Griffin Canning to fill out the rotation.
It’s always dangerous to use Spring Training as a measuring stick, but Holmes and Canning both looked very impressive in Grapefruit League action. The bad news is that returning left-hander Sean Manea and Montas will start the season on the IL, and Kodai Senga will start the season at the bottom of the rotation rather than at the top of it, with Mets manager Carlos Mendoza stating that the Japanese right-hander will be on a limited pitch count in the early going.
As my friend Rich MacLeod writes for JustMets.net, the analytic website FanGraphs is not especially high on this year’s team:
Despite their big offseason where the club signed Juan Soto, Clay Holmes, Frankie Montas, and A.J. Minter and re-signed Sean Manaea and Pete Alonso, Fangraphs actually has the Mets winning three fewer games in 2025.
Now before you freak out… they still have them projected to be the fourth-best team in baseball. The only problem is, that two of their other best teams in the league are finishing ahead of the Mets in their own division … Overall, this one is probably the toughest of all to evaluate. I think the Mets are going to win more than 86 games – and with the offseason they had, they better. And I also think that they have a better than 14.6 percent chance to win the NL East. But the beauty is that this game is not played on computers, nor is it decided by them even if analytics have (rightfully) played such a prominent role in this sport in recent years.
What the Mets need to avoid is the 0-5 start from a year ago, as well as falling 11 games under .500 as they did in June 2024. If they can play a more consistent brand of baseball, perhaps they can afford all of the heavy lifting they had to do to make the postseason on the very last day of the season this time around.
By the time they reached the NLCS, it looked quite clear that the entire pitching staff was running on fumes, and they are going to have to avoid they wish to emerge victorious in a potential NLCS rematch with the majestic Dodgers.
