The New York Mets' 2025 collapse largely came at the hands of poor pitching. The starting rotation crumbled in the final months of the season, leading to New York falling out of the Wild Card race just as the season concluded. It's no secret what position the president of baseball operations, David Stearns, will prioritize this offseason.

In a recent article from MLB.com predicting the landing spot of key free agents, the majority of experts predicted that starting pitcher Dylan Cease will leave San Diego in favor of New York.

30% of experts surveyed chose the Mets as the spot that Cease will ultimately end up, followed by the Chicago Cubs at 34% and the Baltimore Orioles at 11%. Many teams have been linked to Cease this offseason, as he enters the market as one of the most coveted starters, but the Mets have consistently been at the top of the list.

Cease has been a Cy Young candidate in two of the last four campaigns, with the most recent being his first season in San Diego in 2024. With the Padres over the past two years, Cease has recorded a 3.98 ERA across 357 ⅓ innings. His 105 ERA+ in that time frame doesn’t jump off the page, but every team in baseball knows the pitcher Cease can be.

Even when he has had his years of struggle, Cease has always remained one of the best strikeout pitchers in all of baseball. He is coming off a campaign in which he led all of the major leagues with his 11.5 K/9, enough for 215 strikeouts. He’s maintained a K/9 over 10.0 every season of his career aside from the shortened 2020 campaign.

“Among the 82 pitchers who have thrown at least 500 innings since the start of 2021, Cease’s 11.3 K/9 rate is the second-best in the bigs, behind only Blake Snell’s 11.8,” the MLB.com article read. “Cease also threw at least 160 innings in each of those five years. Only he, [Kevin] Gausman and [Jose] Berríos can lay claim to that.”

The ups and downs seem to be a part of Cease’s game, but it isn’t deterring teams. His seven-year, $185 million market value will command a big investment from Stearns and the Mets, but it might be a necessity. Whether New York goes all in on Cease or chooses to spend medium amounts on a few pitchers will be seen in the coming months. The fit between Cease and the Mets is clear, however, and everybody in baseball can easily imagine the pairing next season.