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The Mets are looking to overhaul their starting rotation, and Kodai Senga could be on the trade block.

Senga's name, along with Brandon Nimmo's, was thrown out there as a potential trade piece for the Mets earlier this week, but the interest in the right-hander was brought up on Wednesday's episode of Mets Hot Stove, where SNY's Andy Martino spoke on the subject.

"It's definitely true that he's being discussed in trade talks," Martino said. "There's interest in Kodai Senga around the league right now because of his upside and because of what we've seen when he's at his best...there's certainly a rational line of thinking that would point to a change of scenery after the last two years being the best for player and team. It is not a definite he's going to be traded, but there's going to be so many moving parts coming into the Mets' rotation, they hope and they plan, that Kodai Senga leaving could be a part of the overall overhaul, and I don't think there's going to be a problem finding a trade."

"It's definitely true he's being discussed in trade talks. There's interest in Kodai Senga around the league right now because of his upside"

On Mets Hot Stove, @martinonyc reports that Kodai Senga could be a trade candidate as the Mets look to re-work their starting rotation pic.twitter.com/9loGkef6oW

— SNY Mets (@SNY_Mets) November 20, 2025

Senga signed with the Mets in 2023 and pitched to a 2.98 ERA and a 12-7 record, en route to being the NL Rookie of the Year and seventh in Cy Young voting. However, the last two seasons were marred by injuries and poor performance.

In 2024, Senga made just one start due to various injuries but bounced back in the first half of 2025, pitching great through June, but injuries set him back and when he rejoined the team, his performance suffered. Despite that, he still posted a 3.02 ERA in 22 starts this past season, but with an influx of young arms and potential adds this offseason, Senga could be the odd man out.

Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns spoke about Senga's role on the 2026 team at the GM Meetings earlier this month and said at the moment the right-hander is a part of the rotation, and that he still believed Senga has the talent to bounce back.

"I think right now we view Senga as part of our rotation," Stearns said. "He's proven at the major league level that he can have really good years. Clearly, the last two years, at times, have been struggles for him. "The talent is there, the desire is certainly there to have a bounce-back year. We're going to give him every opportunity to do that."

Currently, Senga is a part of a Mets rotation that includes David Peterson, Sean Manaea, Clay Holmes and Nolan McLean. Brandon Sproat and Jonah Tong are two young pitchers who made their MLB debuts at the end of the season and are highly regarded. But if Stearns is going to bring in a starter from outside the organization, whether via free agency or trade, other moves will need to be made to make room.

MLB will comply with Senate's request for gambling investigation documents, commissioner says originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

Major League Baseball says it will comply with a Senate committee’s request for documents detailing gambling investigations.

Sens. Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee sent a letter Monday to baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred asking for information by Dec. 5. The request followed indictments of Cleveland pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz accusing them of taking bribes to rig pitches for bettors. Both have pleaded not guilty.

“We’re going to respond fully and cooperatively and on time to the Senate inquiry,” Manfred said Wednesday during a news conference at an owners meeting.

Two days after the indictments were unsealed on Nov. 9, MLB said its authorized gaming operators will cap bets on individual pitches at $200 and exclude them from parlays.

“We think the steps we’ve taken in terms of limiting the size of these prop bets and prohibiting parlays off them is a really, really significant change that should reduce the incentive for anyone to be involved in an inappropriate way,” Manfred said.

He said it was too early to say whether MLB will take a stance on prediction markets, in which contracts are traded based on actual events such as game scores.

“We’re well aware of the issues, the different regulatory framework, but not in a position where I want to articulate publicly a position on it,” he said.

Manfred said MLB’s internal investigation into the Cleveland pitchers didn’t have a timetable. Ortiz was placed on paid leave on July 3 and Clase on July 28. They are not on track to accrue additional salary until opening day on March 25.

“We think that we should take advantage of the offseason to make sure that we conduct the most thorough and complete investigation possible,” Manfred said.

MLB is aiding players who have received threats related to gambling following the 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalized sports betting in most states.

“We have had in place for some time services that are available to players that receive threats of this kind in terms of providing support through law enforcement,” he said. “We do take it as a very serious issue and do provide support on an ongoing basis.”

Collective bargaining

Manfred avoided discussing management’s positions in collective bargaining for a labor contract to replace the deal that expires in December 2026 and whether MLB intends to push for a salary cap system.

“We have a significant segment of our fans that have been vocal about the issue of competitive balance and in general we try to pay attention to our fans, so it is a topic of conversation,” was the most he would say.

MLB is expected to lock out players on Dec. 2, 2026, in order to try to get an agreement without shortening the 2027 season.

“There has never been a lost game since I became involved as an employee of baseball and it is my goal to get this next one done keeping that record intact,” said Manfred, who joined the MLB staff in 1998. “It’s a lot of work to be done between now and then, but that’s my goal.”

All-Star break changes

The amateur draft is moving up a day to the Saturday before the All-Star Game and the Futures Game is being pushed back to Sunday and will be followed by a new event with former players and celebrities. NBC will televise the first hour of the draft and the rest of the round on Peacock and the MLB Network. NBC also will televise the Futures Game.

Return to Iowa

The Field of Dreams Game will resume on Aug. 13 with Minnesota playing Philadelphia at Dyersville, Iowa, which Netflix will stream. The Field of Dreams, site of the 1989 movie, hosted the Yankees and White Sox in 2021, and the Cubs and Reds the following year before closing for renovations. The Triple-A St. Paul Saints face the Iowa Cubs at the same site on Aug. 11.

Manfred said MLB plans to play in Iowa regularly but perhaps not annually.

Milwaukee will play Atlanta in the Little League Classic at Williamsport, Pennsylvania, on Aug. 23.

PitchCom

MLB signed a six-year agreement through 2031 with PitchCom, the electronic device for catchers to signal pitches the sport has used since 2022.

“It’s been important both in terms of moving the game along and deterrence of sign stealing,” Manfred said.

Rays and Tropicana Field

Tampa Bay remains on track to return to Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, for its home opener against the Chicago Cubs on April 6 after a year of home games at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, the spring training home of the New York Yankees. The Rays were forced from their ballpark by damage from Hurricane Milton.

“I think they only have two panels left, I believe, and they expect the roof to be dried out the first week in December, which is a really important milestone for us,” he said. “There’s going to be new turf and padding, new flooring throughout, renovations of the suites, the seating areas. All the air quality tests have come back fine.”

Peace prize?

MLB does not intend to follow the lead of FIFA and issue its own peace prize.

“No plans in that regard,” Manfred said.

As MLB free agency begins in earnest with the qualifying offer deadline behind us, right-hander Dylan Cease hits the open market with one of the more vexing résumés of any front-end arm in recent memory. With a track record featuring tantalizing highs and confounding lows over a sizable sample size of innings that has grown uninterrupted over the past half-decade, Cease inspires a wide range of opinions across the industry, setting the stage for an especially fascinating trip to free agency. 

Cease, who turns 30 just before the new year, is a Rorschach test of sorts for clubs seeking high-end starting pitching. Some will see a nearly unrivaled strikeout artist with impressive durability, one who comfortably warrants a nine-figure contract commensurate with those awarded to some of the other best starting pitchers in baseball. Others will see Cease as volatile and unworthy of a significant long-term commitment, a pitcher who has too often struggled to perform his most basic duty of preventing runs.

There is merit to both sides of the Cease outlook. Let’s start with the positives. And who better to sell the skills of the right-hander than his agent, Scott Boras, who spoke on Cease at the GM Meetings earlier this month during his latest round of puns and wordplay:

“You go and look at pitchers that can give you 30+ starts five years in a row, and other than Dylan they cease to exist,” Boras said. Pun aside, Boras immediately hit on one of Cease’s standout traits, one that makes him quite unique in an era when so many prominent starters have missed significant time due to arm injuries, lessening the frequency with which they are amassing a full season’s workload. Cease too has an elbow surgery on his ledger, but it came during his senior year of high school in 2014, an untimely development that impacted his draft stock, though not enough to sway the Cubs from drafting him in the sixth round and giving him a $1.5 million bonus to sign. 

[Get more Padres news: San Diego team feed]

Since Cease returned from that injury as a teenager and began his pro career, he has been remarkably durable. Dealt to the White Sox at the 2017 trade deadline in the package for Jose Quintana, Cease ascended the minor-league ranks without much trouble and hasn’t been on the injured list once for an arm injury as a major leaguer since debuting in 2019. And while Boras’ pun-based compliment may have been a minor exaggeration, he wasn’t off by much: Cease is one of just four pitchers who have made at least 30 starts in each of the past five seasons, alongside José Berríos, Kevin Gausman and Patrick Corbin.

This degree of durability is staggering in this era. While the industry is still in constant search for more clarity regarding how to prevent and/or forecast pitcher injuries, one common saying in baseball is that the best predictor of future injury is past injury. And though Cease’s Tommy John surgery in high school could still be held against him in this case, his decade-plus of taking the mound without any issues since his amateur days carries more weight, and is why his workload is largely viewed as a positive aspect of his free-agent profile. 

That said, no pitcher is fully immune to the physical perils of their profession. And while it’s much easier and perhaps logical to point at oft-injured arms as more risky investments than those who haven’t spent much or any time on the IL, it’s not hard to identify recent examples of pitchers with similarly lengthy track records of health as Cease ultimately needing to go under the knife anyway: take Gerrit Cole last year, or Corbin Burnes earlier this season — unfortunately shortly after signing a mega-deal in free agency with Arizona. 

With all that in mind, predicting whether Cease’s durability will sustain over the duration of his next contract is likely a fool’s errand. Of course, even more important to Cease’s free-agent case than how much he’s pitched is how he’s pitched. Taking the ball roughly every fifth day for the past five years is valuable, but we wouldn’t be talking about Cease at the top of the market if his proclivity to munch innings was his headlining skill.

So, let’s get back to Boras:

“And also his strikeouts — he’s a 200-strikeout guy, a very rare guy on the market. And unlike the other famous Dylan, this one is exclusively electric.”

We’ll move past the musical reference and stay focused on the point that Boras is trying to make, which is to highlight Cease’s other most obvious strength alongside his durability: his knack for racking up whiffs with a high-velocity, high-spin arsenal that is viscerally present every time he takes the mound. Cease’s 29.8% strikeout rate in 2025 ranked third among qualified starters behind only Tarik Skubal and Garrett Crochet. He is the only pitcher in baseball to strike out at least 200 batters in each of the past five seasons. In fact, only six other pitchers have struck out 200+ batters three out of the past five seasons — Cole, Burnes, Gausman, Freddy Peralta, Aaron Nola and Zack Wheeler — stellar company that helps highlight why Cease is discussed in such high regard.

Incredibly, Cease’s punchouts have largely been the product of just two pitches: a four-seam fastball averaging 97 mph and a slider ranging from 87-89 mph. These two offerings have accounted for roughly three-quarters of Cease’s total pitches over the past five seasons, with an 82 mph knuckle-curve appearing about 10% of the time and a new sinker making some cameos in 2025 and a rare change-up surfacing here and there. There has long been speculation about what Cease could become if he diversifies his pitch mix, though it’s also difficult to argue with the effectiveness of his two go-to weapons. That said, how he evolves as he ages — especially if his current velocity begins to decline — is something interested teams are sure to be contemplating when weighing a pursuit of Cease in free agency. 

IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect / REUTERS

Dylan Cease’s top weakness: Giving up runs 

So, Cease has provided a steady supply of innings with an abundance of strikeouts to boot. What’s not to love? While swing-and-miss may be sexy and is very much in vogue in the modern game, it is not the primary objective for starting pitchers. Teams win by scoring more runs than their opponent, and Cease’s track record of consistently stopping opponents from scoring is shockingly shoddy for a pitcher with his peripheral skills. This is where Cease’s case as an elite rotation option becomes cloudy — and how if he secures a major payday, he will stand out as a historical outlier.

The general consensus among those projecting free-agent contracts this winter is that Cease should easily land a lucrative long-term deal. A sampling of such forecasts:

MLB Trade Rumors: 7 years, $189M ($27M AAV)
Tim Britton, The Athletic: 6 years, $174M ($29M AAV)
Ben Clemens, FanGraphs: 5 years, $155M ($31M AAV)
Kiley McDaniel, ESPN: 5 years, $145M ($29M AAV)

From Kevin Brown’s historic $105 million pact with the Dodgers in December of 1998 to Burnes’ $210 million deal with the D-backs 26 years later, 29 starting pitchers have signed free-agent contracts with a total value in excess of $100 million. If Cease joins this select cohort in the coming months as expected, he will do so with the highest ERA in his platform season (4.55) before becoming a free agent. The previous high watermark before securing a nine-figure free-agent contract belonged to Aaron Nola, who posted a 4.46 ERA in 2023 before re-upping with the Phillies on a seven-year, $172 million contract. Otherwise, no other free-agent pitcher in the $100 million sample had posted an ERA even above 4.00 before hitting the open market. Only lefties Mike Hampton (1.346) and Barry Zito (1.403) posted higher WHIPs in their platform year than what Cease (1.327) just did. 

Cease’s 4.55 ERA in 2025 ranked 43rd out of 52 qualified pitchers, marking the second time in the past three years that he ranked in the bottom-10 on the ERA leaderboard, having ranked 38th of 44 qualified arms in 2023 with a 4.58 ERA in 177 innings in his final season with the White Sox. Still, with Cease’s stupendous 2022 campaign in which his 2.20 ERA ranked third and he finished second in AL Cy Young voting hardly a distant memory, his disappointing 2023 performance wasn’t nearly enough to dissuade San Diego from spending considerable prospect capital to acquire him from Chicago. The Padres were promptly rewarded with a much-improved showing in 2024, as Cease returned to Cy Young ballots, lowering his ERA to 3.47 and ranking third in the NL in fWAR. 

But Cease regressed again in 2025, turning in a quality start in just eight of his 32 outings, and allowing at least four runs more times (10) than he allowed one or fewer (9). The strikeouts were still there, of course, providing some strong peripherals that he (and Boras) could certainly still lean on positive indicators moving forward. At the same time, selling a pitcher who just posted an ERA closer to 5.00 than 3.00 is a much different assignment for Boras than extolling the ace-like talents of other recent clients like Burnes, Blake Snell, Carlos Rodón, Cole or Stephen Strasburg.

Overall, Cease’s ability to cash in despite an outlier poor performance relative to his historical parallels as a top-tier free-agent starting pitcher will be an intriguing litmus test for how teams value past performance vs. future projection. Cease has provided his potential suitors with an ample amount of evidence in both directions, bearish and bullish, with underlying skills still worth dreaming on but a sizable sample of innings that convey an arm that is far less reliable than most top-dollar starting pitchers. 

And if anything, the real lesson in reviewing the most lucrative free-agent starting pitcher contracts ever is the vast range of outcomes for these arms once signed. Some of these deals have fundamentally changed franchises for the better, while others have devolved into embarrassing and arduous long-term commitments, either due to performance or to injury. Where Cease’s tenure with his new team will fall on this spectrum of starting pitcher — considering how up-and-down his career has been — is anybody’s guess.