It’s hard to fault the Mets for re-uniting with Ryne Stanek after trading for him prior to the 2024 trade deadline. Part of their attempt to bolster the bullpen for their 2024 postseason push, Stanek struggled
at first, posting a 15.75 ERA (seven earned runs in four innings) across his first five outings. He recovered from there and pitched to a 2.92 ERA (four earned runs in 12 1/3 innings) over his last 12 outings, highlighted by a ridiculous 37.5% strikeout rate. He rode that wave into October and posted a 3.38 ERA in seven postseason outings, establishing himself as one of the team’s most reliable late-inning relievers. That convinced David Stearns to retain the hard-throwing right-hander on a one-year deal.
Stanek ended up leading all Mets pitchers with 65 appearances in 2025, and that was kind of symbolic of the team’s problems this past season. Stanek was relied on far too heavily out of the bullpen and struggled aside from some brief glimpses. He never came close to recapturing the success he had over those final two-plus months, from mid-August through the end of October, in 2024. He was hit hard and often, and was relegated to mop up duty as the season was squandered away.
Stanek got off to a solid start, allowing just one earned run over his first ten outings (0.96 ERA in 9 1/3 innings). In that stretch, he struck out batters at a 27.0% clip while walking batters 13.5% of the time. But then he ran into his first rough patch of the year, blowing three straight appearances to pick up three consecutive losses on April 25, 27, and 30. Two of those games came against the Nationals, with one happening against Arizona. His ERA ballooned from 0.96 to 5.06 to close out April.
May was his best month, as he posted a 1.04 ERA (four runs/one earned in 8 2/3 innings) in 10 appearances. He struck out batters at a high clip (23.5%) while walking batters just 5.9% of the time. He had a rougher June (6.23 ERA in 8 2/3 innings) and rebounded in July (2.79 ERA in 9 2/3 innings). His season really fell apart in August, where he allowed an unsightly 12.38 ERA in eight innings, and followed that up with a 5.38 ERA in 10 1/3 innings in September. He ended up with a -1.0 bWAR as he posted a 5.30, a 4.40 FIP, and a 1.57 WHIP in 56 innings across 65 appearances.
The one positive you could say about Stanek is that he was consistently available, pitching anywhere between 9 and 12 innings every single calendar month. The issue is that he was often unable to avoid big innings from the opposition, allowing innings to avalanche on him when things got tough. In 12 of his 65 appearances, he allowed at least two runs, and he allowed three-plus runs in five particularly catastrophic outings (five runs in 2/3 of an inning against the Giants on August 3; four runs/one earned in 1/3 of an inning against the Yankees on May 18; four earned runs in one inning against the Nationals on August 21; three runs/two earned without recording an out against the Nationals on June 12; and three earned runs in 2/3 of an inning against the Rays on June 15).
He finished the year with the worst bWAR among all Mets pitchers and absorbed six losses, most among Mets’ relievers and second only to Clay Holmes on the pitching staff. The right-hander really was, in many ways, a microcosm of the 2025 Mets: One that started out with promise and ended up being altogether miserable and disappointing. Stanek remains a free agent now and will almost definitely find a new place to call home in 2026.
