The New York Mets have been on a spending spree this offseason, and that continued on Saturday night when they further bolstered their starting rotation with the addition of Japanese ace Kodai Senga. Senga has long been one of the most dominant starters in Japan, and he finally decided to make the transition to the MLB when he signed a five-year, $75 million deal with New York.
It's always tough to know how players from Japan will perform in the MLB, but Senga has a long track-record as being one of the best pitchers in the Nippon Professional Baseball league in Japan. Senga also received a rather rave review from former MLB All-Star Adam Jones, who spent two seasons in Japan and encountered Senga on several different occasions.
“He’s naaasssty. The stuff is major-league stuff.” – Adam Jones, The Athletic
The “stuff” Jones is referring to would be Senga's arsenal of pitches. Senga's two most deadly pitches involve a fastball that can reach triple-digits and a splitter that is nicknamed “the Ghost Fork” due to how it disappears right before it reaches the plate. Typically if your pitches have their own nicknames, that means you have some good “stuff” as Jones puts it.
There's a chance that transitioning to the MLB could be a challenge too big for Senga, but he's proven during his stint in Japan that he has a truly deadly arsenal of weapons. He also won't have to carry the rotation considering he will be working behind Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer in the Mets rotation. But so far, it seems like this could end up being a very beneficial signing for New York.
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