The New York Mets have the best starting pitching ERA in baseball at 2.89. One major reason behind this is the emergence of Griffin Canning. Before this season, the 2017 draftee‘s lowest ERA of his career was 3.99 in 2020 over just 11 starts. This season, in eight starts, his ERA is just 2.36. How has this one-time back-end-of-the-rotation starter improved so much in such a short time?
Griffin Canning Dominating in First Year with Mets
Letting It Fly
While on the surface, Canning’s fastball was somewhat effective for him in 2024, with opposing hitters hitting .251 against it, his put-away percentage was just 12%, compared to this season’s 22.7% with the same pitch. Put-away percentage refers to the rate at which a pitcher’s two-strike pitch results in a strikeout. This season, albeit being a far shorter sample size than all of last year, has shown that Canning has a solid fastball, and when he trusts it, he can get outs.
Moreover, his fastball has simply been a better pitch this season in general. When analyzing how his fastball has been breaking compared to last year, its horizontal break has 2.3” more tail than the average right-hander, compared to just 0.5” more tail than the average righty in 2024. While this may seem like a small detail, it adds up when comparing the run value of his fastball as well, with last season being a dismal -12, and this season being an improved 1 run value.
Trusting His Off-Speed
While Griffin Canning’s fastball has been impressive this season, his off-speed work has been even more surprising. Last season, every off-speed pitch, aside from his changeup, had a negative run value. His only negative run value pitch now is his cutter, which he just developed this season.
He also has a new primary pitch, his slider. He’s only thrown three more sliders than fastballs, but to realize how rare it is for Canning to have an off-speed pitch as his primary pitch, all you have to do is look at his previous seasons. In his six-season career, his fastball has always been his primary pitch, and has never once had a positive run value, besides 2025. On the other hand, his slider has only been negative two times, the worst of which was last season, at a -6 run value over 690 pitches. He has already thrown the same pitch 249 times this year, to a positive run value.
Why Is This Happening?
While the majority of the credit has to go to Canning himself, as he is the one who has to execute his pitches on the mound, Jeremy Hefner and the famous Mets “pitching lab” deserve a lot of credit as well. Since the 2020 season, Hefner’s first as pitching coach, the Mets have a 3.95 team ERA, the 11th best in baseball, and just 0.51 behind the two-time world champion Los Angeles Dodgers, during this period.
Every five to six days, Griffin Canning takes the mound—and we get another chance to remind you how elite Jeremy Hefner and David Stearns are.
The vision. The development. The results. It’s all clicking. pic.twitter.com/tm1wOBXG2K
— Pitch Profiler (@pitchprofiler) May 11, 2025
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As for the aforementioned “pitching lab”, former Met Al Leiter gave his thoughts on it in an interview with SNY’s John Harper. “It’s technology that takes in all the data on every pitch and deciphers the good and the bad,” Leiter said. “With video and high-speed cameras and pitch-tracking monitors and biomechanical cameras, it breaks down every little thing in how you deliver the ball, how it comes off your fingers, and why it works or doesn’t work.
While it’s unknown if Canning had access to technology anywhere near this advanced to help him during his time with the Los Angeles Angels, the results speak for themselves, and the Mets just may have found themselves a diamond in the rough in Griffin Canning.
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