The improbable story of MLB's best rotation so far in 2025

Coming into 2025, the Mets looked built to slug their way to the postseason. They’d added Juan Soto. They’d re-signed Pete Alonso. And they still had Francisco Lindor. With that kind of firepower, the lineup figured to be the story.

But more than a month into the campaign, it’s the rotation -- once viewed as a potential liability -- that has emerged as the Mets’ biggest strength.

That's not to say New York’s lineup hasn't had its moments, too, with Alonso looking like an MVP candidate and Soto starting to find his footing after a slow start. But above all else, it's the starting staff that has set the tone day after day, propelling the Mets to first place in the National League East and one of the best records in baseball.

True, overachieving rotations have long been part of the playbook for Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns. But even he has to be surprised by this.

The Mets’ rotation hasn’t just been dominant, it has been head and shoulders above every other staff in the game.

Lowest team ERA by SP, 2025
Through Saturday

1. Mets: 2.32
2. Royals: 3.11
3. Rangers: 3.13
4. Phillies: 3.24
5. Tigers: 3.29

And it’s not just ERA where the club’s staff shines. The Mets’ rotation also ranked at or near the top of MLB in a number of other key metrics through Saturday, including FIP (first), SIERA (third), pitching run value (second) and expected wOBA allowed (tied for second).

The club's numbers may have taken a bit of a hit Sunday, when spot starter Blade Tidwell allowed six runs to the Cardinals in his MLB debut after being called up to start Game 1 of a doubleheader. But that was an outlier -- the team's regular rotation has been an elite unit, no matter how you slice it.

It’s a result that would have been surprising under any circumstances, made even more remarkable given the context.

The Mets not only entered this season without two of last year’s top starters, Luis Severino and Jose Quintana, but also lost Sean Manaea (right oblique strain) and Frankie Montas (right lat strain) -- who cost the club more than $100 million in free agency this past offseason -- during Spring Training. The club’s depth was further thinned by Paul Blackburn’s right knee injury, which cropped up in his final spring outing.

All of that left the Mets to rely on a group of starters rife with uncertainty, making the extent of the club’s success on the mound feel all the more improbable. As the Mets prepare to open a three-game series against the D-backs in Phoenix on Monday, let's take a look at the key questions the club's rotation faced coming into 2025 -- and how each has been answered so far.

All stats below are through Saturday.

How will Clay Holmes’ transition from reliever to starter go?

While Holmes had some ups and downs with the Yankees in 2024, losing his closer job in the process, he was still expected to be a coveted free agent in the reliever market this past offseason. During his time with the Yankees, the sinkerballer posted a 2.69 ERA with 74 saves, 238 strikeouts and 69 walks over 217 2/3 innings. He also had a 1.35 ERA over 20 postseason innings in that span.

However, a surprising report emerged from MLB Network insider Joel Sherman in early December that said multiple teams were showing interest in Holmes -- as a starter. Not long after, Holmes reached a three-year, $38 million deal with the Mets, and Stearns confirmed that the team planned to transition the right-hander to the starting rotation.

While a number of pitchers in recent years have successfully made that move, including Seth Lugo, Michael King and Reynaldo López, it was fair to be skeptical of Holmes’ ability to do the same, given he hadn’t filled that role since making four starts with the Pirates in 2018.

Any doubts about the plan were compounded when Manaea and Montas went down in Spring Training, suddenly making Holmes a crucial piece of the rotation puzzle as he ascended the depth chart, ultimately drawing the nod as the team’s Opening Day starter.

Despite his inexperience pitching in the rotation, Holmes has been nothing short of spectacular so far. Through seven starts, he owns a 2.95 ERA and a 2.16 FIP over 36 2/3 innings. He’s striking out more than a batter per inning and hasn’t allowed a home run yet, with his signature sinker still generating a steady stream of ground balls.

While that pitch remains Holmes’ bread and butter, the 32-year-old has diversified his arsenal to handle the increased demands of facing lineups multiple times per game.

Holmes has gone from a three-pitch pitcher to a six-pitch pitcher, adding a changeup, cutter and four-seamer to his sinker-sweeper-slider mix while dropping the usage of his primary offering by more than 20 percentage points.

The new additions to his repertoire have been outstanding -- he has allowed a .149 average and .170 slugging percentage with 18 strikeouts in 49 combined plate appearances ending on changeups, cutters and four-seamers.

What version of Kodai Senga will the Mets get after he made just one start in 2024?

After showing frontline starter potential as a rookie in 2023, when he finished second in the NL Rookie of the Year Award voting and seventh in the Cy Young race, Senga missed most of last season due to injuries.

The first, a right shoulder capsule strain, kept him out the first four months of the season. Senga returned on July 26 to strike out nine Braves over 5 1/3 innings in a superb debut but sustained a left calf strain during that start and went back on the IL. He ended up missing the rest of the regular season before returning for three short postseason appearances totaling just five innings.

With Senga having thrown only 10 1/3 combined frames in 2024, it was tough to know what to expect from him in ’25. However, the Gamagori, Japan, native has recaptured his ace form in a hurry.

Although Senga has allowed a .350 average and .517 slugging percentage on his two primary fastballs -- a four-seamer and a cutter -- it hasn't mattered. That's because his patented “Ghost Fork” has been as terrifying as ever for opposing hitters.

With the Ghost Fork's innate ability to generate swings out of the zone, Senga has allowed just three hits (all singles) with 21 strikeouts in 41 at-bats ending on forkballs this season, good for a .073 batting average.

Lowest BA allowed on individual pitch type, 2025
Minimum 40 PAs ending on that pitch type

1. Kodai Senga’s forkball: .073
2. Hunter Brown’s four-seamer: .083
3. Fernando Cruz’s splitter: .089
4. Hunter Greene’s slider: .093
5. Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s splitter: .098

Fueled by the Ghost Fork, Senga has notched a sparkling 1.38 ERA over six starts, the fourth-lowest mark among those with at least 30 innings pitched in 2025.

Can David Peterson build on his 2024 success?

Peterson’s career hasn’t followed a straight line. He’s bounced between promise and frustration year after year -- a 3.44 ERA as a rookie in 2020, a stumble in ’21 (5.44 ERA), a rebound in ’22 (3.83 ERA) and another step back in ’23 (5.03 ERA) before undergoing left hip surgery, which kept him out for the first two months of ’24.

While Peterson returned from surgery last May and went on to post a stellar 2.90 ERA over 21 starts in 2024, his inconsistent track record made it tough to fully trust the results. But to this point in 2025, Peterson has done his part to quell those concerns. Through six starts, he owns a 3.06 ERA with a 2.93 FIP over 32 1/3 innings.

The doubts about Peterson may persist, especially considering some of the underlying metrics that paint his 2025 season in a less flattering light. But it’s also hard to ignore that his performance has been on par with some of the best pitchers in baseball for nearly a full calendar year.

Lowest ERA among qualifying pitchers since May 29, 2024^
^Peterson's return from hip surgery

1-T. Paul Skenes: 2.14
1-T. Hunter Brown: 2.14
3. Michael King: 2.21
4. Tarik Skubal: 2.40
5. Max Fried: 2.72
6. Bryce Miller: 2.83
7. Framber Valdez: 2.86
8. Zack Wheeler: 2.91
9. David Peterson: 2.93
10. Michael Wacha: 2.97

Can Tylor Megill and Griffin Canning hold down the final two rotation spots until Manaea and Montas return?

Of all the questions facing the Mets' rotation at the start of the season, this one had the greatest potential to go awry.

The Mets gave Megill ample opportunity to prove himself as a starter from 2021-24, but his performance and his durability left a lot to be desired. Megill, who spent time in the Minors in both 2023 and ’24, entered this season with a lifetime 4.56 ERA and an 88 ERA+ over 74 games (67 starts).

Canning, meanwhile, was never able to establish himself as a rotation staple for the Angels, missing significant time across 2021-22 with a stress fracture in his back and recording a 4.78 ERA and a 93 ERA+ over 105 games (100 starts) with the team. After pitching to a 5.19 ERA in 2024, Canning was traded to the Braves for Jorge Soler on Oct. 31. Atlanta non-tendered him less than a month later, making him a free agent, and he signed with the Mets for $4.25 million on a one-year deal.

To put it simply, even the most optimistic Mets fan had to be at least a little concerned about Megill and Canning at the outset of the season. However, the two have stepped up in a big way, turning the back end of the Mets' rotation into a formidable force.

The recipe for success has been strikingly similar for both: four-seamers and sliders, and lots of them. In fact, each pitcher is using his slider more than ever this season, making it his go-to secondary pitch behind the four-seam fastball. The sliders themselves share similar traits, too, with each featuring significant downward break -- both relative to the rest of MLB and their own sliders in 2024.

Megill’s slider is dropping 46.2 inches from his hand to the batter this season, which is 8.5 inches more drop than comparable slider users -- the best drop of any MLB slider. As for Canning, his slider has the third-best drop (minimum 100 sliders thrown) at +6.6 inches.

Both hurlers are also getting strong results with the four-seamer, particularly when it comes to limiting extra-base hits. Among starting pitchers who have ended at least 30 plate appearances on four-seamers this season, Canning ranks third with a .200 slugging percentage allowed. Megill is tied for 10th with a .244 SLG.

All told, Canning has posted a 2.61 ERA and a 3.25 FIP through six starts. Megill has been even more dominant in his six outings, pitching to a 1.74 ERA with a 2.31 FIP while striking out nearly 30% of the batters he has faced.

Of course, none of this means the aforementioned questions have disappeared entirely. It’s a long season, and the club’s current group still needs to prove it can hold up across six months.

That said, the Mets' rotation has clearly redefined expectations, offering evidence that the club's hopes of hanging with baseball's elite might not rest solely on its high-powered offense.