The New York Mets welcome the Pittsburgh Pirates to Citi Field for the first series of 2026. For approximately three hours, confined to just one small section of Flushing, all is right with the world again.
Well, depending on the outcome.
The Mets are coming off a disappointing season where they just barely missed the playoffs and responded by blowing up their team and rebuilding it in an interesting, if somewhat unconventional, way. Without rehashing every event of the last five months, let’s recap
briefly: the Mets traded Brandon Nimmo and Jeff McNeil, Pete Alonso and Edwin Díaz signed elsewhere, and Freddy Peralta, Bo Bichette, Jorge Polanco, Luis Robert Jr., Marcus Semien, Devin Williams, Luke Weaver, and Tobias Myers are all now part of the fold.
This is going to be a really interesting season, as it is somewhat of a transitional year between the old core and the emerging youth movement in Queens. With Nolan McLean debuting last year, Carson Benge making the Opening Day lineup, and Francisco Alvarez having a monster end of the season, it seems like the next Mets core is either already here or at least partially in progress.
Add to the home-grown core the duel superstars of Juan Soto and Francisco Lindor and the team looks fairly complete, offensively. There’s no real replacement for Alonso’s caveman power, but between Bichette and Polanco’s superior hit tools, Robert’s occasional boom, and Semien’s (hopefully) not totally destroyed offensive skillset, the lineup is deeper and more evenly dispersed than the last year, where if it wasn’t Lindor, Alonso, or Soto, it seemed like runs weren’t being driven in.
The biggest question right now is whether or not the infield, which is made up of two players playing out of position for the first time in their professional careers, is a gamble that will work out. On one hand, these are elite athletes and the Mets know way more about all of this than we do. On the other, it seems likely that there will be some ugly plays on both corners.
On the pitching front, the Mets have the deepest rotation in many years, with at least nine viable starting options without dipping into quad-A/KBO territory. The starting five (for now) are Peralta, David Peterson, McLean, Kodai Senga, and Clay Holmes, with Sean Manaea piggy-backing a starter. But add to that Tobias Myers (for now) in the bullpen, plus Christian Scott and Jonah Tong, and the team hopes to not have a repeat of the end of 2025, when just about anyone with an attached arm was considered for a start. I know it’s somewhat silly to say that when only Peralta and Myers weren’t in the org in September of last year, but injuries and fatigue hamstrung the team significantly.
The bullpen is another work in progress, with A.J. Minter still a few weeks away from the big league roster, and the relative lack of starter innings necessitating a few of the ol’ churn spots for guys like Luis Garcia and Richard Lovelady. But the core of Williams, Weaver, Brooks Raley, and Huascar Brazobán looks to be as strong, or stronger, than the bullpen was last year. The Díaz departure stings for multiple reasons, but the bullpen won’t suffer too terribly because of it as long as everyone else does their job. With Myers as a real swingman, they will hopefully be able to utilize him in a way that saves other arms without damaging his.
The bench for this opening series is made of Luis Torrens, Mark Vientos, Tyrone Taylor, and Jared Young, with Brett Baty acting as opening day DH. Mike Tauchman probably would’ve been on that list had he not hurt his knee, and it seems likely that the Young spot will be one that will be different every few weeks, at least until A.J. Ewing makes it clear that he belongs up here.
So it’s a team with a lot of promise and some questions. In other words, it’s the New York Mets.
The Pirates are a team that are always difficult to properly project. Yes, they only won 71 games last year, but they have maybe the best pitcher on the planet in Paul Skenes and a whole crop of young talent. However, their ownership has proven time and time again that spending money is not in their plans for the team and so while, yes, they brought in some new players (including noted domestic abuser Marcell Ozuna), still have Oneil Cruz, and their starting pitching looks good, you can’t really believe in this team until ownership does.
The NL Central is a weird division, and I can’t imagine the Pirates won’t be better in 2026 than they were in 2025, but will they be good enough to challenge the top two clubs?
Thursday, March 26: Freddy Peralta vs Paul Skenes, 1:15 PM EDT on NBC/Peacock
Peralta (2025): 176.2 IP, 204 K, 66 BB, 21 HR, 2.70 ERA, 3.64 FIP, 65 ERA-)
The Mets’ new ace (until McLean officially takes that role on, hopefully quite soon) is not a guy who is going to give you a ton of innings, but he’s a guy who is going to be very good in those innings. Peralta only had one (unplanned) start of under 5 innings last season, which seemed to be the Mets’ calling card for big chunks of the year. His 154 ERA+ was a career high last season, and even if he doesn’t quite reach that ceiling again, he’s going to be a sturdy, very good, potentially great #1 for the Mets this season.
Skenes (2025): 187.2 IP, 224 K, 50 BB, 17 HR, 1.97 ERA, 2.36 FIP, 46 ERA-)
The reigning Cy Young winner, the 2024 Rookie of the Year, and one of the top three pitchers in the game, Skenes is a formidable pitcher to face any day of the year, but on Opening Day, it’s especially daunting. That said, he’s always fun to watch pitch, and so at least if the Mets lose, they’ll do so to one of the best.
That said, the Mets are the best team in baseball history at Opening Day. Let’s hope that holds true again today.
Saturday, March 29: David Peterson vs Mitch Keller, 4:10PM EDT on SNY
Peterson (2025): 168.2 IP, 150 K, 65 BB, 11 HR, 4.22 ERA, 3.48 FIP, ERA-)
The David Peterson of the first half of 2025 made the All-Star Game, and it’s not hard to see why. Through the end of July, Peterson had a sub-3.00 ERA and was regularly going six plus innings for the team. But after July, things fell apart pretty quickly, with a run and a half being added to his ERA and his walks steadily climbing. If Peterson can harness some of that first half energy, we’d all appreciate it.
Keller (2025): 176.1 IP, 150 K, 51 BB, 21 HR, 4.19 ERA, 4.02 FIP, ERA-)
The longest tenured Pirates starter, Keller has been a mainstay in their rotation since 2021. 2025 was about an average year for him: ERA in the low fours, 150ish strikeouts, averaging about 5 and two-thirds innings a start. He’s a perfectly cromulent starter on a team that could really use him to elevate his performance a little.
Sunday, March 29: Nolan McLean vs Carmen Mlodzinski, 1:40PM EDT on SNY
McLean (2025): 48.0 IP, 57 K, 16 BB, 4 HR, 2.06 ERA, 2.97 FIP, 51 ERA-)
What’s there to say about McLean that we haven’t already said? He’s clearly the best pitching prospect on the team and arguably in all of baseball. His first taste of the big leagues was incredibly successful, and he handled the big stage of the World Baseball Classic with aplomb. He’s one of the most exciting players in the game, and I can’t wait to watch him pitch.
Mlodzinski (2025): 99.0 IP, 89 K, 27 BB, 8 HR, 3.55 ERA, 3.33 FIP, 83 ERA-)
As a spot starter/reliever over the past three years, Mlodzinski has been fairly good for the Pirates, but he’s the biggest question mark of their rotation. That’s in part because his time as a starter hasn’t been nearly as effective as his time in the bullpen. The Pirates are hoping he can make that leap this season.
