{"id":552241,"date":"2026-02-03T13:23:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T13:23:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/552241\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T13:23:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T13:23:20","slug":"jonah-tong-talks-goals-for-2026-peralta-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/552241\/","title":{"rendered":"Jonah Tong Talks Goals For 2026, Peralta Trade"},"content":{"rendered":"

The calendar officially flipped to February Sunday, which means spring training is on the horizon.<\/p>\n

Pitchers and catchers aren\u2019t due to report until February 13, but still, some have gone early. Their reward has been record setting freezing temperatures in Florida, and our reward has been quotes from players ahead of the season.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Jonah Tong, Photo by Ed Delany of Metsmerized<\/p>\n

For the Mets, a good portion of the starting rotation have reported. Nolan McLean<\/a>,\u00a0Clay Holmes<\/a>, and the newest Met\u00a0Freddy Peralta<\/a>\u00a0are all in Port St. Lucie throwing. So is\u00a0Jonah Tong<\/a>, who took time to speak with the media about his offseason and goals for 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just going to be where my feet are and let everything else take care of itself,\u201d Tong told reporters when asked about his goals for 2026. \u201cI\u2019m looking forward to having fun along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Development, patience, and a calm approach would certainly help Tong. In spurts last season, he looked like dominant pitcher who led all minor leaguers in strikeouts. Tong had a dominant debut against the Marlins on August 29, where he struck out six over five innings, and then punched out eight Padres over five innings on Setptember 18 to lead the Mets to a 6-1 win.<\/p>\n

Yet despite some success, Tong finished the year with a 7.71 ERA in five starts. Two of which he didn\u2019t pitch past the second inning. It was clear that Tong was rushed to the majors in 2-25 to save a sinking ship, and getting himself acclimated at his pace would be benefical to his development.<\/p>\n

One pitcher who could help with said development is Peralta. The righty acquired from Milwaukee is at Port St. Lucie early with other Mets, and while Tong hasn\u2019t had time to dissect his approach, the Canadian is excited to learn more from one of the best pitchers in the majors.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust did,\u201d Tong replied when asked if he\u2019s met Peralta. \u201cHe\u2019s awsome. Haven\u2019t got a ton to talk to him about just yet, but I\u2019m excited to learn from him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peralta\u2019s knowledge as an ace will be beneficial to all of the young pitchers in the Mets\u2019 organization. But for Tong, he has the potential to evolve his game. Peralta\u2019s pitch mix is almost identical to Tong\u2019s. He primarily throws a four seam fastball 53.5% of the time, then mixes in his changeup 21.2% of the time, and a curveball 15.8% of the time. Peralta also throws a slider at 9.4% clip, but survies on three pitches, which many have critized Tong for and alluded his struggles to.<\/p>\n

Of course, Peralta being with the Mets means former Met\u00a0Brandon Sproat<\/a>\u00a0is now in Milwaukee. Tong and Sproat came up through the minors together, and reporters asked Tong what it was like to see his friend traded.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a great friend of mine. I just wish him nothing but the best along the way I know he\u2019s always going to have a fan in me and im really excited to see how he progresses the rest of his career. But, ya, I love that guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

With his feelings on his former friend being traded and goals stated, Tong was also asked about how his offseason was and the cold weather down in Florida. The 22-year-old had a fun offseason, and also had pointed some blame for the cold on his teammate.<\/p>\n

\u201cCold. But it was filled with a lot of fun memories expeically just being able to see the family. I blame Nolan. I got down and it was really nice, sunny, and beautiful. All of sudden, he gets down here, and it\u2019s really cold. I blame him.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The calendar officially flipped to February Sunday, which means spring training is on the horizon. Pitchers and catchers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,1712,753,12950,101,2517],"class_list":{"0":"post-552241","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baseball","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-clay-holmes","10":"tag-freddy-peralta","11":"tag-jonah-tong","12":"tag-mets","13":"tag-nolan-mclean"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116006919852856159","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}