Mets’ Sean Manaea provides update on elbow injury

The Mets eventually demoted Manaea from their rotation, piggybacking him with Clay Holmes in September before trusting him to go just one inning with their season on the line in Game 162 against Miami. While many attributed Manaea's struggles to the loose body in his pitching elbow, the 33-year-old lefty said after the season that the issue was overblown.

The hope at the end of the season was that Manaea would be able to avoid surgery on his pitching elbow. It appears that hope was realized as Manaea provided an update on his elbow at a charity function in Brooklyn last week, with MLB.com's Anthony DiComo reporting that Manaea feels the issue is "a thing of the past" and that he did not need surgery to address the issue.

Where Sean Manaea fits on the 2026 Mets

While it is good news that Manaea didn't need surgery to address his elbow, it does raise some concern that his poor performance in 2025 wasn't a result of the loose body. The Mets have Manaea signed for two more years at $25 million a year, although a portion of his salary is deferred to reduce the present day value of the deal.

That contract valuation, combined with Manaea's poor performance, makes him essentially untradeable. The Mets are expected to try and clear some of their rotation logjam to find a new home for Kodai Senga via trade, but they may run out of room in their rotation for Manaea if they can add a front-line starter this winter.

Assuming a new ace joins Nolan McLean and Clay Holmes atop the rotation, the Mets will have two open spots for Manaea, David Peterson, Jonah Tong, Brandon Sproat and Christian Scott. While it is possible an existing starter besides Senga is moved via trade, the Mets will have to see how Manaea looks in spring training before deciding how to use him in 2026.

If some of the team's younger starters beat out Manaea in a camp competition, he could remain with the club as a long man in the bullpen. Manaea does have previous bullpen experience, and working in multi-inning stints could help the Mets keep him stretched out to step into the rotation as a sixth starter during long stretches of the schedule without an off day.

Having a long reliever making $25 million a year is not ideal from a roster building perspective, however, so it is likely Manaea will have an inside track on a rotation job entering camp. Perhaps a spot towards the back of the rotation will offer less pressure for Manaea, enabling him to focus more on working towards recapturing the form that made him dominant at the end of 2024, but the Mets clearly are hoping to get more out of him in 2026.