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Kodai Senga joins Mets, predicts first year based on Japanese results

Kodai Senga joined Mets

Kota Senga, who has joined the Mets, has asked fans for their opinions and he decided on his number, 34, the number Nolan Ryan wore when he joined the Mets. Senga was the ace of the evergreen SoftBank team in Japan, but at the time of joining the team, he was a reliever. In 2017, he won his first title, the highest winning percentage, and in 2020, he won the triple crown of best ERA, most wins, and most strikeouts. He has grown into one of Japan's leading aces. The following table summarizes Japan's results over the past 11 years.

Season	G	W	L	SV	HLD	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP	BAA
2012	2	0	1	0	0	4.2	7	7	5	0	8	1	9.64	3.21	.350
2013	51	1	4	1	17	56.1	32	16	15	1	26	85	2.40	1.03	.164
2014	19	1	1	0	3	22.2	17	5	5	1	5	28	1.99	0.97	.205
2015	4	2	1	0	0	22.1	9	2	1	0	10	21	0.40	0.85	.125
2016	25	12	3	0	0	169.0	125	52	49	16	53	181	2.61	1.05	.207
2017	22	13	4	0	0	143.0	107	47	42	15	46	151	2.64	1.07	.211
2018	22	13	7	0	0	141.0	116	57	55	21	58	163	3.51	1.23	.227
2019	26	13	8	0	0	180.1	134	60	56	19	75	227	2.79	1.16	.205
2020	18	11	6	0	0	121.0	90	37	29	4	57	149	2.16	1.21	.207
2021	13	10	3	0	0	84.2	60	25	25	2	27	90	2.66	1.03	.196
2022	22	11	6	0	0	144.0	103	37	31	7	49	156	1.94	1.06	.208
Total	224	87	44	1	20	1089.0	800	345	313	85	414	1252	2.59	1.11	.206

Season	G	W	L	SV	HLD	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP	BAA
2023	30	11	9	0	0	179.2	162	78	71	19	61	181	3.56	1.24	.224

Prediction for Kodai Senga's first year with the New York Mets in 2023.

And the second is a projection of Senga's first year in America with the Mets, based on his performance in Japan. In Japan, he was often injured, never pitched more than 200 innings, and his best number of win was 13 win. Also, Senga, whose name is synonymous with a ghost fork, strikes out a lot. This is his first year in the MLB, so he will probably need time to get used to it. However, Senga has always had a strong desire to pitch in the majors, and it is believed that he is preparing accordingly. The Mets have two Cy Young Award winning pitchers in Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer, and Senga will be the third to fifth starter. If he can get the above results, it would be a respectable first year of a contract worth a total of $75 million. Japan has some very good pitchers, such as Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Rōki Sasaki, but Senga's performance this year will be one of the benchmarks for Japanese pitchers in the future. We hope to see him join the ranks of Shohei Otani and Yu Darvish, who are now MLB's leading pitchers.

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