MLB Trade Rumors dropped the confirmation on Thursday: Kodai Senga isn't a starting pitcher for the Mets right now, he's a weapon in the bullpen. It's a wild swing for a guy who signed a 5-year, $75 million deal to be a front-of-rotation arm, but 2026 has been a mess for Senga and the Mets have run out of patience with the traditional route.
The backstory here isn't pretty. Senga posted an 8.66 ERA as a starter this season, a number that would get most pitchers designated for assignment. He also missed time with lumbar spine inflammation, and once he came back, interim manager Andy Green decided the rotation experiment was over. Instead of forcing a struggling starter back into a 5-and-fly role, the Mets are letting Senga air it out in shorter bursts.
And it's actually working. Senga has strung together two solid relief outings, capped by a stretch against Atlanta where he allowed just 1 earned run over 2⅓ innings. Green has floated using him as either a true 1-inning leverage arm or stretching him for multiple frames depending on the game state — basically whatever the bullpen needs on a given night.
Part of why this move makes sense: the Mets gutted their bullpen at the trade deadline, shipping out Luke Weaver, Huascar Brazoban, Brooks Raley and A.J. Minter. That left a void, and it also left an opening for Green to get creative. Senga's stuff — triple-digit heat and a forkball that misses barrels — always looked like it could play in high-leverage spots, and now the Mets get to find out for real instead of just talking about it.
For Senga personally, this is as much about survival as strategy. He's signed through 2027, so this isn't a contract-year audition, but it's fair to read this stretch as a referendum on what role he actually fits going forward. He's said all the right things about being flexible — "it doesn't matter where I pitch" — but no $75 million starter wants his path to relevance running through the 7th inning instead of the 1st.
The bigger picture: the Mets are scuffling and looking for any edge to salvage the season, and reinventing a former ace as a shutdown reliever is exactly the kind of desperate-but-smart move a last-place team should be making in August. If Senga keeps missing bats out of the pen, this stops being a stopgap and starts being the new plan.