{"id":636686,"date":"2026-03-22T05:36:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T05:36:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/636686\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T05:36:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T05:36:21","slug":"mets-announce-sean-manaea-will-begin-season-in-bullpen-as-starting-rotation-is-set","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/636686\/","title":{"rendered":"Mets announce Sean Manaea will begin season in bullpen as starting rotation is set"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sean Manaea will not be part of the New York Mets\u2019 season-opening starting rotation, which the team announced on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Manaea, 34, will begin the season in the bullpen while Freddy Peralta, David Peterson, Nolan McLean, Clay Holmes and Kodai Senga form manager Carlos Mendoza\u2019s five-man starting rotation.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"link \" href=\"http:\/\/yahoofantasy.com\/baseball\" data-i13n=\"cpos:1;pos:1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Draft your Yahoo Fantasy Baseball team for the 2026 MLB Season;cpos:1;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkPosition&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yPosition&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Draft your Yahoo Fantasy Baseball team for the 2026 MLB Season&quot;,&quot;yHasCommerce&quot;:false}\">Draft your Yahoo Fantasy Baseball team for the 2026 MLB Season<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Mendoza acknowledged that he had six candidates for the starting staff coming out of Grapefruit League play, but opted to go with a five-man rotation with a day off after the Mets\u2019 season opener versus the Pittsburgh Pirates. However, that follows with a stretch of nine games in nine days. That might make a six-man rotation necessary.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf everyone was healthy, we were going to have to make some tough decisions,\u201d <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SNY_Mets\/status\/2035361527553757353\" data-i13n=\"cpos:2;pos:1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Mendoza told reporters;cpos:2;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkPosition&quot;:&quot;2&quot;,&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yPosition&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Mendoza told reporters&quot;,&quot;yHasCommerce&quot;:false}\">Mendoza told reporters<\/a> on Saturday, \u201cand one of them was going to be pitching in that type of role.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Mets skipper added that Manaea will likely pitch during that first turn through the rotation, piggybacking on one of the starts. But he didn\u2019t say when that would be.<\/p>\n<p>As could be expected, Manaea wasn\u2019t pleased with the decision but says he\u2019ll do whatever the team needs from him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI consider myself a starter,\u201d Manaea said, <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/mets\/news\/sean-manaea-set-to-open-2026-season-in-mets-bullpen\" data-i13n=\"cpos:3;pos:1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:via MLB.com;cpos:3;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkPosition&quot;:&quot;3&quot;,&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yPosition&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;via MLB.com&quot;,&quot;yHasCommerce&quot;:false}\">via MLB.com<\/a>. \u201cTo not be that is frustrating. But at the end of the day, I\u2019m just going to let my pitching do the work in whatever capacity that is, and go from there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Growing concerns with Sean Manaea\u2019s velocity<\/p>\n<p>Manaea compiled a 3.72 ERA in 9 2\/3 spring innings with nine strikeouts. He also allowed seven hits. There has been some concern that Manaea\u2019s velocity has gone down since struggling through <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/news\/sean-manaea-shut-down-from-throwing\" data-i13n=\"cpos:4;pos:1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:left elbow;cpos:4;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkPosition&quot;:&quot;4&quot;,&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yPosition&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;left elbow&quot;,&quot;yHasCommerce&quot;:false}\">left elbow<\/a> and oblique injuries last season. His fastball is 3 mph slower, averaging 88 mph, while his sweeper has lost 5 mph, <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/7127132\/2026\/03\/18\/mets-sean-manaeas-velocity-down-concerns\/\" data-i13n=\"cpos:5;pos:1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:according to The Athletic;cpos:5;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkPosition&quot;:&quot;5&quot;,&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yPosition&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;according to The Athletic&quot;,&quot;yHasCommerce&quot;:false}\">according to The Athletic<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>However, Mendoza insisted that Manaea\u2019s velocity was not a factor in him not being in the season-opening rotation. Manaea told reporters that he believes he\u2019ll throw harder once the regular season begins and the adrenaline develops from games that count in the standings.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Last season, Manaea finished with a 5.64 ERA in 12 starts (and 15 overall appearances). With 75 strikeouts in 60 2\/3 innings, he registered the highest strikeout rate of his career with 11.1 Ks per nine innings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sean Manaea will not be part of the New York Mets\u2019 season-opening starting rotation, which the team announced&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2396],"tags":[5,1443,1712,759,753,1716,101,4,1690,61,2548,4203,2517,64,5749,1268,1454],"class_list":{"0":"post-636686","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-mets","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-carlos-mendoza","10":"tag-clay-holmes","11":"tag-david-peterson","12":"tag-freddy-peralta","13":"tag-kodai-senga","14":"tag-mets","15":"tag-mlb","16":"tag-new-york","17":"tag-new-york-mets","18":"tag-newyork","19":"tag-newyorkmets","20":"tag-nolan-mclean","21":"tag-pittsburgh-pirates","22":"tag-rotation","23":"tag-sean-manaea","24":"tag-starting-rotation"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116271211036130578","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636686","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=636686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}