The New York Mets just keep spending money. It’s impressive to see to be honest. They’ve spent $360 million in guaranteed money over the last week or so and the latest addition is Kodai Senga. Senga is the latest ace pitcher to be posted from the Nippon Professional Baseball League (NPB) and perhaps the highest profile one since Shohei Ohtani. That being said, he’s not a two-way player and is more of the mold of Yu Darvish. Either way, it’s good news for the Mets and their completely remade starting rotation of Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Senga, José Quintana, and Carlos Carrasco as the number five starter. What can we expect from Senga for fantasy baseball? What does this do for the Mets? And does this have any impact on remaining starters like Chris Bassitt, Carlos Rodón, Noah Syndergaard? Let’s take a look.

Kodai Senga’s 2023 Fantasy Baseball Value

If you haven’t heard of Senga before, he’s been the right-handed ace of the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks in the NPB for the last 11 seasons. He’s coming into 2023 in his Age-30 season so he’s been pitching in Japan since he was 19 years old. Over those 11 years he’s posted a 2.59 ERA and 10.3 K/9 with a 1.12 WHIP. The stuff is remarkable, here’s a taste below…

The top end velocity of 102 mph is great, but he typically sits more in the 95-98 range and mixes in three other pitches. It’s not all sunshine and roses though. A few things to keep in mind with Senga, like all Japanese pitchers. Firstly, they throw fewer innings in the NPB in a season, as evidenced by him having 1,340.2 total innings (including postseason appearances) in 275 games in 11 seasons. He did split time between the pen, working as a bulk pitcher, and then as a starter. Over the last five seasons though he’s been averaging 6.2 innings an appearance, over 20.2 starts a year. So a big jump in innings shouldn’t really expected as we’d expect to see him around the 150-inning mark. Secondly, the ball is smaller and ways less compared to an MLB ball. So there’s an adjustment period there too. Overall though, Senga can be drafted safely as an SP3 for fantasy baseball in 2023. I’d expect, pending his health/physicals, for him to finish in the realm of Chris Bassitt, Max Fried, or Logan Webb from a year ago. That means his managers receive solid ratios, a nice amount of innings, and just under a strikeout per inning.

How Does Kodai Senga’s Signing Impact The New York Mets?

Prior to the winter meetings, after Jacob deGrom left, there were serious questions about the rotation in Queens. Carlos Carrasco was in line to be the third starter with Tylor Megill and David Peterson being fourth and fifth respectively, now they’re out of the rotation and Carrasco is the fifth man. That’s a serious improvement. A starting rotation listed above is easily the deepest and best in baseball on paper… and we all know games aren’t played on paper. So what do the Mets do from here? Well, it’s likely they move Megill and Peterson to the pen to act as long receivers or perhaps help out Senga with an adjustment to MLB by spelling him as a sixth starter every so often. The other thing this means is that if their starting five stays healthy, which knowing the Mets is a big question, they have quality arms to move in deals to bolster whatever they need to come June or July. It’s clear by now that Steve Cohen is taking the approach the Dodgers did about a decade ago — spend a huge amount early to be competitive while building the farm system back up and then when the farm system shows up, stop signing every free agent you can think of. For fantasy terms, expect the Mets starters to be the first five off the board with all of them being at least SP3s in your leagues. Overall this was a fantastic steal of a deal for the Mets who got Senga for five years and $75 million which is less than the overpay, as of now, that Boston spent on Masataka Yoshida.

How Does Kodai Senga’s Signing Impact Remaining Free Agent Starting Pitchers?

There are still big-name starters on the market in the seemingly never-ending pool of free agents this year. Former Mets pitcher Chris Bassitt is still out there looking for a four-year deal (at minimum) according to reports, and former Giants and White Sox pitcher Carlos Rodón is rumored to be looking for a seven-year deal. Whether they get those deals is up in the air,  especially for Bassitt who’s spot in the rotation was taken by Senga. This signing should be a benchmark in AAV, if not length for him. Carlos Rodón will take some time to develop at this point with most teams having their ace in place for the teams willing to pony up for one. Could the Yankees make a move to sign Rodon to steal some of the headlines from their crosstown rivals? Possibly. The other arms though might be in for the long haul at this point as teams take a look as to who they can get on the cheap now.

 

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