Kodai Senga Could Earn The New York Mets An Extra 2024 Draft Pick

When the New York Mets signed right-handed pitcher Kodai Senga from Japan, they expected him to boost their starting rotation. Thanks to a new MLB rule, he may also enhance their 2024 draft class as well.

MLB and the MLB Players Association settled on new rules to curtail service time manipulation as part of the Basic Agreement prior to the 2022 season. One of these rules grants teams an extra draft pick after the first round if they have a player who accrues a full year of service time and finishes in the top three in the Rookie of the Year voting or top five in MVP or Cy Young voting.

The ROY Case For Senga

Nippon Professional Baseball—the top league in Japan—grants players free agency after ten years of service time. After starring for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks from 2012-2022, Senga signed with the Mets last December on a five-year, $75M contract with a vesting option for a sixth year. The deal includes an opt-out for the pitcher following the 2025 season if he reaches 400 innings in the first three years of the contract—and he already has 122.2 this season.

Not much has gone according to plan for the Mets in 2023, who commenced the season with World Series expectations but reside in fourth place with a 57-66 record, one game ahead of the basement-dwelling Washington Nationals. When they traded away future Hall of Famers Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander, Senga became the default ace of the pitching staff.

Senga has been one of the lone bright spots in Queens. He owns a 3.30 ERA while leading the team in innings and strikeouts (149). Even though his 11.3% walk rate is higher than the league average of 8.6%, he offsets it with an excellent 28.6% strikeout rate and holds opponents to a .215 batting average. He was named to the NL All-Star roster, though he did not pitch in the game.

He calls his signature pitch a “ghost forkball.” It’s especially effective against left-handed hitters, fluttering down and away from them.

Senga has become one of the most popular players on the team with fans. The club has a “glow-in-the-dark ghost fork ball” giveaway scheduled for August 25.

The Competition

At 30 years old with more than a decade of experience pitching in one of the top-tier leagues in the world, Senga is only a rookie in the technical sense. This does not preclude him from Rookie of the Year consideration though. Four previous Japanese veterans have won the award: Hideo Nomo in 1995, Kazuhiro Sasaki in 2000, Ichiro Suzuki in 2001, and Shohei Ohtani in 2018. Sasaki was 32 when he won the award, indicating age is not necessarily a factor either.

Senga is the best rookie pitcher in the NL, but he has not been the best rookie overall. Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder Corbin Carroll is head of the rookie class with 3.9 fWAR (FanGraphs’ version of WAR). He also leads NL rookies with 37 stolen bases and is tied for the most with 21 home runs. Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder James Outman boasts a strong .358 on-base percentage as well as 15 homers and 14 steals. Cincinnati Reds middle infielder Matt McLain didn’t start the year in MLB, but he’s closing fast on the competition with a .301 batting average and 132 OPS+, indicating his total offensive output is 32% better than league average. Senga’s catcher, Francisco Álvarez, is tied with Carroll for the rookie lead with 21 home runs.

Among pitchers, Senga has a big advantage in volume. He has thrown 30 more innings than any other rookie hurler in the NL except for Arizona’s Ryne Nelson, who has an unsightly 5.47 ERA. Cincinnati’s Andrew Abbott is the only other pitcher who could enter the competition for the award with his 2.99 ERA, but he has eight fewer games started than Senga and has thrown just 81.1 innings so far.

For the Mets to earn a draft pick, Senga doesn’t need to win the Rookie of the Year outright—he just needs to finish in the top three. He could also net an extra pick for the club by finishing in the top five in Cy Young voting. That is less likely, though not impossible.

Undoubtedly, the Mets expected him to contend for these awards when they signed him. The possibility of gaining draft capital factored into their valuation when they negotiated his contract offer. This will influence other clubs going forward when veteran stars from foreign leagues immigrate to MLB. This includes Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the ace right-hander for the Orix Buffaloes and winner of the last two Sawamura Awards—the Japanese equivalent of the Cy Young.

Regardless of what happens with awards voting, the Mets have gotten their money’s worth in the first year of Senga’s contract. An extra draft pick would be icing on the cake.