A significant part of the New York Mets’ downfall was their inability to get anything from their pitching staff, both in the rotation and bullpen.
Rampant injuries and maddening inconsistencies prompted manager Carlos Mendoza to use an MLB-record 46 different pitchers in 2025, and ex-reliever Adam Ottavino, who spent three years with the Mets, is not chalking it up to bad luck.
“This is embarrassing, this is actually pathetic, like pathetic,” Ottavino said on his Baseball & Coffee podcast. “I would’ve never let this happen if I was on the team last year. At least half of these guys wouldn’t have blown out. I would have protected these dudes myself; I would have had to jump in front of them myself. Unfortunately, there was nobody willing to stand up and talk to Carlos this year; it was just me, I guess. So a little bit of an issue there.”
Ottavino was with the Mets during Mendoza’s first season in 2024, which was a year in which they defied expectations with a run to the NLCS. They quickly gained the reputation of maximizing their pitchers, specifically revitalizing the careers of Sean Manaea and Luis Severino.
That didn’t happen in 2025. Frankie Montas battled injuries and had an ERA well over six before he was demoted to the bullpen, lost for the rest of the season with an elbow injury, and then released last week.
Kodai Senga’s hamstring injury destroyed a brilliant first half, Griffin Canning suffered a ruptured Achilles, reliever AJ Minter was gone by May due to a lat injury, and Manaea did not make his season debut until July because of an oblique injury.
” It’s funny because they were bragging about keeping people healthy the year before, when it had nothing to do with them,” Ottavino said. “So yeah, I’m a little annoyed because these are guys that should be playing, so it pisses me off.”
It is forcing president of baseball operations David Stearns to overhaul both the rotation and bullpen this winter, though Mendoza’s managing — according to Ottavino — might sabotage it all.
“And if they continue down this path, they’re gonna be f—d, because you cannot injure this many dudes every year,” Ottavino said. “Hopefully, this is not an actual strategy because it’s freakin’ pathetic and it’s not player-friendly, and eventually people will catch on.”
