The cliched bold predictions come in different magnitudes. There’s Level 1, where you essentially point to something that’s likelier than it recently had been and predict it will come to pass. There’s Level 2, where you locate something that’s likelier than it feels it should be. There’s Level 3, where you play out a longer period of time to a counterintuitive, if logical, conclusion. And then there’s Level 4, where you predict something so outlandish and unlikely to happen that it can justifiably be accused of being engagement bait.
In thinking through bold predictions for the 2026 Mets, I stuck with the first three levels here, mainly because I don’t like predicting things I don’t actually think will happen.
Juan Soto is the only Met with 30-plus home runs
Last year Soto, Pete Alonso and Francisco Lindor became the first trio of Mets to hit 30 home runs in the same season. But Alonso is now in the AL East and Lindor is coming back from a hamate surgery that could briefly hinder his power to start the season — enough to make a difference for someone who’s hit 31, 33 and 31 homers the past three years.
While the Mets added three players with 30-homer seasons in the past (and a fourth who’s hit 29), players in that group are less likely to play 150-plus games this year.
Kodai Senga makes the All-Star team
Just about every Kodai Senga story contains one sentence that starts “It’s easy to forget…”. That Senga was one of the National League’s best pitchers in 2023, that even the compromised version of himself was the Mets’ choice to make abbreviated Game 1 starts in two playoff series in 2024, and, for our purposes here, that he was cruising toward an All-Star berth just last summer before a hamstring injury derailed his whole season. Senga carried a sub-2.00 ERA into June last year, and that’s despite feeling off with his mechanics through the first two months of the season.
He does not feel off with them now. The right-hander is as outwardly confident as he’s ever been in the major leagues, and his stuff through spring justifies that assurance. He was hitting 99 on the gun with his fastball and slicing through lineups. There is always the chance that a well-placed groundball or errant throw changes things. But if Senga stays on the mound, he can make the trip to Philly in July.
The Mets advance to at least the NLDS — and start a pitcher not on the Opening Day roster once there.
The Mets will carry six or seven traditional starters on their Opening Day roster, depending on how you categorize Tobias Myers. But they don’t have a clear quartet you’d want going in a postseason series. Sure, if the Mets are in the postseason, Freddy Peralta and Nolan McLean probably had a lot to do with it, and we already have Senga as an All-Star. But who’d be No. 4?
By September, Christian Scott or Jonah Tong — each of whom has been considered the organization’s best pitching prospect at times over the last two years — has a good shot of jumping into the mix. And both have a better chance of showcasing the high-level, swing-and-miss stuff that the postseason requires than David Peterson, Clay Holmes or Sean Manaea.
