This story was excerpted from Anthony DiComo's Mets Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
HOUSTON -- The 2025 season began just a tick inauspiciously for the Mets, who dropped their opener to the Astros with Juan Soto at the plate. So it goes. Even $765 million players can¡¯t come through on every occasion.
Much as one game isn¡¯t enough to judge a player, it¡¯s also not enough to answer questions about a team. The 2025 Mets have plenty of those, including these four that particularly interest me:
How good can Soto be?
In his first year with the Mets, it would be unfair to expect Soto to be better than last year, when -- in terms of adjusted OPS -- he produced one of the 35 best seasons of any player this century. Yet for my bold prediction that ran in Tuesday¡¯s newsletter, that¡¯s exactly what I wrote.
Why do I believe Soto can be better than he was in a year that saw him hit 41 homers with a .989 OPS? In addition to his obvious skill, he¡¯s only 26, a prime age when injury concerns aren¡¯t quite as front-of-mind as they might eventually become. At this point, he¡¯s accustomed to switching teams, and he seems genuinely happy with this one. He¡¯s also never won an MVP award, and while Shohei Ohtani remains the man to beat in that arena, Soto is clearly good enough to do it.
But baseball is a difficult game, as underscored by Soto¡¯s final at-bat on Opening Day. A lot will have to go right for Soto to be even better than he was in 2024.
Can Edwin D¨ªaz¡¯s velocity rebound?
I wrote about D¨ªaz¡¯s velocity toward the end of Spring Training, eliciting a mix of reactions. Some of you seemed panicked. Others were confident it was just a Spring Training thing that would go back to normal once the season began. D¨ªaz didn¡¯t pitch on Opening Day, but he surely will before the end of the weekend. When he does, I¡¯ll be eager to check out his radar gun readings. It¡¯s just a lot easier to envision D¨ªaz as a dominant closer when he¡¯s sitting 99 mph versus 96.
Is this Clay Holmes transition going to work?
So far ¡ not perfect. Holmes was inefficient over 4 2/3 innings on Opening Day, walking four batters and throwing 89 pitches. That¡¯s not the Holmes we saw in Spring Training, where he carved up opposing lineups pretty much every time out.
Afterward, Holmes talked about the ¡°growth¡± and ¡°learning¡± process he plans to achieve between starts. He¡¯ll pitch again next week in Miami. Every one of his outings will be instructive, especially in the early season.
Is the rest of the rotation going to be strong enough?
It¡¯s not as if the Mets have a ton of sure things elsewhere in their starting five. Neither Tylor Megill nor David Peterson have ever completed full seasons in a big league rotation. Griffin Canning has, but he¡¯s coming off statistically one of the worst seasons of any Major League starter. Kodai Senga, meanwhile, has to be one of the toughest pitchers to project in the entire league. He just needs to stay healthy.
Reinforcements could arrive sooner rather than later, but it¡¯s not as if injured starters Sean Manaea and Frankie Montas will be guaranteed success when they return. Same goes for prospects Brandon Sproat and Blade Tidwell, who have high ceilings but a lot to prove.
If the Mets are going to win this year, they¡¯ll need their rotation to be solid, start to finish. That¡¯s well within the realistic range of possibilities, but so are plenty of worse outcomes. Let¡¯s see how the next couple of months go. This rotation will surely look different in June than it does right now.