The New York Mets are poised for a big year in 2025 as they seek to follow up a magical season that ended in the NLCS against the World Series Champion Dodgers. Offensively, they will run out a very similar squad to last year with the notable addition of Juan Soto as well. Their starting rotation carries some question marks but has potential to be great if it all clicks the right way.
This team is loaded with stars. The aforementioned Juan Soto is joined by Francisco Lindor, Pete Alonso, and Brandon Nimmo in the daily lineup while guys like Sean Manaea, Kodai Senga and Clay Holmes hold down the rotation. This makes for a top-heavy core on both sides of the ball.
There are, however, two pieces of this team that will be the ultimate key to repeating last year’s successes. One position player and one starting pitcher that will be absolutely crucial to the depth of this team. Who you may ask?
Mark Vientos and David Peterson.
Both will be serving similar roles this season, even though the flashier Vientos will probably command some more attention with his swag and fan favored power. Mark Vientos is the guy that gets to hit in the middle of all the star-studded sluggers I mentioned earlier. He is building a nice track record early on in his career, but he still carries a degree of uncertainty with him when predicting this season.
The same exact sentiment can be applied to David Peterson, who will work behind 3 established arms this year once Manaea returns from injury. While Clay Holmes is a certified stud, he is also somewhat of a project in the long run as he transitions to be a full-time starter. Kodai Senga is returning from an injury-plagued season and the backend options of Tylor Megill and Griffin Canning could be decent but largely leave much to be desired.
Factoring all of this in, an increased weight is put on Peterson’s shoulders as he needs to be the face of consistency and reliability in the middle of this group. Similarly, Mark Vientos needs to keep improving to make this offense as big of a weapon as everyone hopes it can be.
Let’s dig deep into each player and unveil what they are capable of and why I chose to single them out as the crucial ingredients into the Mets recipe for 2025 success.
Mark Vientos played in 111 games in 2024 as he started playing regularly around mid-May. Over the course of the season, he smacked out 27 home runs, drove in 71 runs, and hit a respectable .266 with a .322 OBP and .516 SLG. He tallied a 135 OPS+ and a WAR of 3.1 in his first full stint in the show. This was the role they desperately needed him to fill as they were thirsty for more power in the lineup.
Diving deeper into the metrics, there is much to be excited about for Mets fans. He flaunted his power with a 113.2 Max Exit Velocity and flaunted a 91.2 Average Exit Velocity. The latter exceeds the average velocity numbers of superstars Kyle Tucker, Bryce Harper and even his teammate, Francisco Lindor to name a few. Couple up his impressive hard-hit rate with his 8.8% Barrels/PA rate (almost top 20 in MLB) and you have the makings of a potential superstar. He is still just 25 and while he is continually settling in at the big-league level, he already has his hard-hit metrics placing in the high 80s and low 90s in terms of MLB percentile.
His metrics obviously do not make your mouth water like Juan Soto, Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani’s do, but that is fine. He does not need to be Juan Soto on this team because they quite literally already have him. He just needs to keep growing and unleashing his potential to make this lineup deeper.
While it is nice to highlight the sexy metrics, it is equally pivotal to mention what he needs to improve on if he wants to be the key player that I think he can be.
Drawing walks (was only in the 40th percentile) is an area of improvement to focus on, especially with a fairly high whiff and chase rate to go along with it. This is a straightforward formula for more strikeouts and a lack of plate vision. This is perfectly fine for a young power hitter because he hits a ton to make up for it now, but it can lead to slumps and every great player is defined by how they break out of those. High whiff rates and low walk rates will only generate more frustration as he gets older.
Back to some positives now. In 2024, Vientos hit .329 with 18 HR against fastballs which is obviously great. If he can work to improve upon identifying off-speed pitches and be more disciplined in the box, he will surely have the toolset to become a superstar. In addition to hitting the stitches off of fastballs, it must be acknowledged that he was also an absolute force in the postseason last year.
Like an unstoppable force.
In 13 playoff games, he clubbed 5 HR and drove in 14 runs while hitting .327 and slugging .636. Two of his five home runs in the postseason were game tying blasts and one was a go-ahead shot. One of the remaining home runs he hit was a massive grand slam that changed the entire dynamic of NLCS game 2 in LA.
Mark Vientos ranked third in overall postseason hits behind just Tommy Edman and Mookie Betts who each played in 16 games and a full extra series. He also ranked third in overall RBIs behind Betts and Giancarlo Stanton, who also played more games. He was only 2 off in each category from first place with less games played. He showed Mets fans something real special last October as he put his full potential on display.
That quality of play is not sustainable over 162 games but there is no doubt in my mind that he can take a step forward and knock out 40 homers and drive in 100 RBIs as the everyday clean-up or five-hole batter.
Now, on to David Peterson and why I think he can be a catalyst for a successful Mets season. I will start his 2024 season, which was the best season of his career and a tremendous step in the right direction for the young pitcher.
Last season, he started 21 games and pitched efficiently to an impressive 2.90 ERA and tossed Quality Starts in half of his games. He made his season debut on May 29 and instantly helped to change the course of the season. He provided a reliable stat line every 5th day at a time where the team was in a free fall and needed stability. Luis Severino and Sean Manaea stole the headlines down the stretch while Peterson quietly was one of the best pitchers in the MLB in the second half.
During the final two months of the season, the Mets called for maximum effort from the entire team, and he answered. In this stretch of time, he registered a 2.41 ERA, 1.14 WHIP and 58 strikeouts in 67.1 innings. He just could not help himself from pitching like an ace for 7 innings every time he touched the field.
He does not have the most dominant put-away pitch and that is the primary cause for his average strikeout percentage. However, unlike previous seasons, he fully leaned into it last year and took his sinker to a new level.
He had a 50.1% ground ball rate and generated 158 ground ball outs, which is the 41st most in the big leagues. Now remember, he only started 21 games. I calculated this to be around 7.5 ground ball outs per game. If he were able to start 30 games last year, he would be floating around 225 ground ball outs which propels him all the way to #6 in the MLB, amongst the likes of Max Fried, Framber Valdez and Logan Webb, to name a few.
With numbers like this, he can be more than just “effective.” He can be straight up dominant. He may not have the same ceiling as Max Fried, but I think it’s more than fair to draw comparisons to him and other established pitchers who have experienced much success with similar strikeout rates, like Jose Berrios or Seth Lugo. Elevating to Fried’s tier would require a boost in his K/9 this year, which would also help to put some of his “expected ERA” concerns to bed.
He is still growing as a pitcher, and he does not need to be the next Tom Seaver for this team, but his potential and recent performance give him a chance to be huge for the surging Mets. Speaking of recent success, he has dominated the Grapefruit league so far with a nasty 0.57 ERA and respectable 12 strikeouts in 15.2 innings.
Despite the decision to not utilize him in the opening series in Houston next week (for routine related maintenance), he opens the season as the true #3 in the rotation and a cornerstone for the Amazin’s.
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