Baseball is back, baby.
Little darling, it’s been a long, cold, lonely winter. Little darling, it seems like years since it’s been here.
It’s baseball season, doo doo doo doo. It’s baseball season, and I say, it’s alright.
Welcome to your 2025 season. It’s going to be a good one.
The season kicks off with a three-game set between the New York Mets (0-0) and the Houston Astros (0-0), coming to you from Enron Minute Maid Daikin Park in downtown Houston.
The Mets are an interesting mixture of home grown talent, superstar acquisitions, and reclamation projects. It is exciting to see those three tributaries come together in one team, put together by an ownership group that wants to win above all else, an analytically minded front office, and a fan base that, when properly engaged, is like no other in sports.
The season is already starting differently than expected, with two key offensive players and two starting pitchers beginning the year on the Injured List. But those injuries are providing some of the more fascinating stories of the early season.
In part because of those injuries, the Mets are trotting out two starting pitchers from deeper down the depth chart than many expected for April. With both Griffin Canning and Tylor Megill, there are opportunities to establish themselves as more than just spot starter chaff. Even the Mets’ Opening Day starter is somewhat of a surprising tale: reliever turned starter Clay Holmes, coming off a spectacular spring, is trying to prove the gamble the Mets took on him to be a smart one.
On the position player side, the story of the winter, the spring, and much of the next decade is Juan Soto, but baseball fans know who Soto is and what he brings to the table. This is also true of Francisco Lindor, Pete Alonso, Brandon Nimmo, and a few other key offensive players. The interesting parts of the early season, from a storyline perspective, are how the absences of Jeff McNeil and Francisco Alvarez affect the Mets. Specifically, how Brett Baty fares at his most recent, and potentially final, shot at being an every day Met.
The Astros are coming off another first place finish, but an abbreviated playoff run, not making it out of the Wild Card series. This year is a transitional year for the ‘stros, as they say goodbye to Justin Verlander (again), Kyle Tucker, and Alex Bregman, as well as moving Jose Altuve from second base to left field. Cam Smith making the Opening Day roster with just 32 minor league games under his belt is a fascinating turn of events, but one that an organization with the front office reputation of the Astros can pull off with something close to the benefit of the doubt.
The starting rotation has a very strong 1-2, with Framber Valdez and Hunter Brown, and with Josh Hader at the back end of the bullpen, it is a very top heavy pitching staff. There’s a fair amount of optimism around the rest of the staff and, while they are not exactly the Dodgers of Texas, they are a team that has built up an impressive track record of success. Taking out the 2020 shortened season, the Astros haven’t had a loser record since 2014, and won the division seven of the last eight seasons.
Thursday, March 27: Clay Holmes vs. Framber Valdez, 4:10pm on SNY
Holmes (2024): 63.0 IP, 68 K, 22 BB, 4 HR, 3.14 ERA, 3.02 FIP, 78 ERA-
It is easy to dream on what Clay Holmes can be as a starting pitcher. In five appearances this spring, Holmes put up an ERA under one, striking out 23, and walking just eight over 19.1 innings. However, there is always uncertainty when a player is transitioning into a new role. The work that Holmes has put in has been impressive, and so far the results have been encouraging. I’m not so worried about Opening Day, but how Holmes’s arm is holding up four, five, six starts from now.
Valdez (2024): 176.1 IP, 169 K, 55 BB, 13 HR, 2.91 ERA, 3.25 FIP, 73 ERA-
Framber Valdez is one of the elite starting pitchers in baseball today. Valdez’s first great season was the COVID-19 shortened 2020 campaign, and he’s continued to make adjustments to his game. In 2024, his curveball, changeup, and sinker were all plus pitches, and his slider and four-seamer play well, too. At 31, he’s probably beginning to enter a decline, but last year was just as strong as the last four, so it isn’t likely that the decline is coming precipitously.
Friday, March 28: Tylor Megill vs Hunter Brown, 8:10pm on Apple TV+
Megill (2024): 78.0 IP, 91 K, 32 BB, 8 HR, 4.04 ERA, 3.55 FIP, 108 ERA-
The plan was not for Tylor Megill to start a game for the Mets in May, but Megill, like Thanos, seems inevitable. Megill started 16 games last year, and had his best stretch of his career, putting up a 4.04 ERA with the best strikeout and walk rates of his career. Megill still has options, so this seems to be a temporary assignment, but let’s hope that the progress he made in 2024 continues into 2025.
Brown (2024): 170.0 IP, 179 K, 60 BB, 18 HR, 3.49 ERA, 3.58 FIP, 88 ERA-
Entering his third full season, Hunter Brown is getting better and better. In 2024, Brown threw more innings, allowed fewer runs and dingers, and his walk and strikeouts remained consistent from his breakout 2023 campaign. While ideally, you’d like the strikeouts to increase when an innings increase, Brown is learning how to pitch more effectively. His OPS against dropped 99 points between ‘23 and ‘24, so he’s limiting hard contact. He was in the 97th percentile in hard hit percentage and 93rd in barrel rate. If he can keep limiting hard contact, he will be a formidable pitcher for years to come.
Saturday, March 29: Griffin Canning vs Spencer Arrighetti: 7:15pm, FOX
Canning (2024): 171.2 IP, 130 K, 66 BB, 31 HR, 5.19 ERA, 5.16 FIP, 127 ERA-
In the span of spring training, Griffin Canning went from an afterthought or a frustrated “why did we sign this bum?” statement to someone that people are legitimately excited about. Striking out nearly 14 per nine innings in Grapefruit League action will do that for you. Canning is not going to blow you away, but he’s a crafty pitcher learning to maximize his stuff. He’s an exciting experiment to watch all season; it’ll be a big test of the new pitching lab.
Arrighetti (2024): 145.0 IP, 171 K, 65 BB, 21 HR, 4.53 ERA, 4.18 FIP, 114 ERA-
With a name like Spencer Arrighetti, I’m going to be rooting for you. In his first season in the big leagues, Arrighetti started 28 games and pitched respectably, but it is a pretty steep drop off from Valdez and Brown to Arrighetti, at least in terms of what we’ve seen from him so far. But in talking to Astros folks, they believe that Arrighetti is due for a big breakout this year and, perhaps, he was rushed to the bigs last season. His cutter is his best pitch, with a curveball right behind it, but he doesn’t have a true put-away pitch just yet. If baseball doesn’t work out, he may be able to get work as a cinematographer during World War II.