{"id":115821,"date":"2026-03-18T00:19:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T04:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=115821"},"modified":"2026-03-18T00:19:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T04:19:07","slug":"the-radar-gun-says-one-thing-mets-sean-manaea-say-another","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/03\/18\/the-radar-gun-says-one-thing-mets-sean-manaea-say-another\/","title":{"rendered":"The Radar Gun Says One Thing, Mets and Manaea Say Another"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With almost seven days out until Opening Day, <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/manaese01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-03-18_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sean Manaea<\/a>&#8216;s velocity on his fastball has been alarming. Just one season removed from a down year, this is not what anyone envisioned.<\/p>\n<p>The good news, however \u2014 and what&#8217;s possibly more important \u2014 is that Manaea threw four scoreless innings on Tuesday in the New York Mets&#8217; 5-5 tie with the Miami Marlins at Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium. He added four strikeouts along the way.<\/p>\n<p>The bad news is that his velocity has seen a dip for the third straight outing this spring. Manaea averaged 88.4 mph on that fastball and topped out at 89.9.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"max-width: 610px\"><smartframe-embed class=\"smartframe_wp_element\" customer-id=\"b0c95bc04383cef69c6b47df872135cf\" image-id=\"WmOBYGwJwZLP\" style=\"width: 100%; display: inline-flex; max-width: 3600px; aspect-ratio: 3600\/2400;\" ><\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n<h2>Sean Manaea&#8217;s Velocity Continues to Fall<\/h2>\n<p>In 2024, after <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/01\/07\/sean-manaea-new-york-mets\/\" target=\"_self\">signing with the Mets<\/a> following his tenure with the San Francisco Giants, Manaea averaged 92.2 mph on his heater. Last season, that number dipped lower, averaging 91.7. And now it&#8217;s even lower.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">uhhh&#8230;.we&#8217;re 2 weeks away from Opening Day and Sean Manaea is sub 90mph on his fastballs&#8230;..<\/p>\n<p>He averaged 91.7mph during an injury plagued 2025 and 92.2mph during his awesome 2024 season.<\/p>\n<p>Feels like this should be more concerning. <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/8CvrZUjCgw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/8CvrZUjCgw<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Christopher Soto (@SotoC803) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SotoC803\/status\/2032145792887144660?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 12, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt\u2019s low, but at the end of the day, I feel good,\u201d Manaea said. \u201cI\u2019m not concerned about it whatsoever. I know when I get up to Citi Field and get some adrenaline going, I think it will shoot back up. But right now, it is what it is.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Manaea is fully aware of this issue, but is it an issue? The veteran doesn&#8217;t seem to think so: &#8220;<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I\u2019ve done it in the past,\u201d Manaea said. \u201cI\u2019ve pitched with 86, 87 [mph]. Obviously, I don\u2019t want to be there. But I still think I\u2019m effective.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>It was not the season the Mets or Manaea envisioned the 34-year-old would have last year. Fresh off signing a new<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/12\/23\/sean-manaea-returns-mets-three-years\/\" target=\"_self\"> three-year, $75 million contract<\/a>, Manaea had to miss significant time in 2025 with a right oblique strain in spring training, and later dealt with a 7-millimeter loose body in his left elbow, which he managed with a cortisone shot rather than surgery.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We don&#8217;t know,&#8221; <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/managers\/mendoca99.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Carlos Mendoza<\/a> said regarding when the club expects Manaea&#8217;s velocity to tick up. &#8220;I would say [it will], but it might take some time.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credit: Sam Navarro-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With almost seven days out until Opening Day, Sean Manaea&#8216;s velocity on his fastball has been alarming. Just one season removed from a down year, this is not what anyone envisioned. The good news, however \u2014 and what&#8217;s possibly more important \u2014 is that Manaea threw four scoreless innings on Tuesday in the New York [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5706,"featured_media":96294,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22,1071,35],"tags":[4683,3075],"class_list":["post-115821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mets","category-mlb","category-news","tag-carlos-mendoza","tag-sean-manaea"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5706"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115821"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115842,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115821\/revisions\/115842"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}