Kodai Senga had the worst season of any New York Mets pitcher who recorded a decision in 2026. He finished 0-9 with a 7.34 ERA. On Tuesday, The Athletic reported that multiple teams are interested in trading for him.
That is less strange than it sounds, and the reason is the last two months.
The Reliever Version Works
Senga opened the year in the rotation and was unusable there. He went 0-7 with a 9.66 ERA in eight starts, landed on the injured list on April 28 with lumbar spinal inflammation, returned on June 16, and was moved to the bullpen eight days later.
Then closer Devin Williams went down with a right shoulder strain in August and Senga inherited the ninth inning. Over his final 18 appearances he posted a 3.78 ERA with 22 strikeouts in 16 2/3 innings and converted eight of nine save chances. In August alone he had a 1.74 ERA and held hitters to a .167 average. He got his first career save in Atlanta, retiring Matt Olson and Michael Harris II on forkballs.
Williams was activated on September 22. Senga still got the save the next night against Texas. A team trading for him is buying 16 innings of late-inning work from a pitcher with a swing-and-miss offspeed pitch, not the starter who could not get through five.
The Contract Is the Interesting Part
Senga is 33 and turns 34 at the end of January. He is in the final year of the five-year, $75 million deal he signed in December 2022, owed a $14 million base salary for 2027 that lands as a $15 million hit against the luxury tax.
There is a $15 million club option for 2028, and it does not work the way club options usually do. It vests only if Senga has Tommy John surgery or suffers a right elbow injury that keeps him on the injured list for at least 130 days. The team that acquires him takes on an automatic extra year precisely in the scenario where his elbow comes apart. Spotrac also lists escalators that add $2 million to the option price for a Cy Young win and $1 million for a second-through-fifth-place finish.
He carries a 10-team no-trade list, which kicked in this year when his full no-trade clause expired. The list is not public. No outlet has reported a single team on it, and no outlet has named a single team pursuing him.
Why the Mets Might Actually Do It
New York finished 74-88 and last in the NL East, its first full-season last-place finish since 2003. President of baseball operations David Stearns has called adding to the rotation necessary, and that rotation is already stacked with young arms: Nolan McLean, Christian Scott and Zac Thornton combined for a 3.42 ERA, with Jonah Tong and Tylor Megill behind them.
Senga wants to start. Manager Andy Green said in late September that Senga “has been really good expressing to us that his passion resides in the rotation.” He is not getting that job in Queens. Moving him clears $14 million and a 40-man spot while the Mets chase Tarik Skubal, who they have a meeting scheduled with next week and who Jon Heyman has called them “probably the favorite” to sign.
The calendar is the obstacle. The collective bargaining agreement expires at 11:59 p.m. ET on December 1, and a lockout the following day would freeze every trade and signing in the sport. Whatever the Mets intend to do with Senga, they have about three weeks to do it.
One caution: The Athletic ran a nearly identical Senga trade-interest report in November 2025 and nothing came of it. Interest is not a deal.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
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