Griffin Canning
Player Data: Age: 29 (5/11/1996) B/T: R/R
Primary Stats: 16 GS, 7-3, 3.77 ERA, 1.376 WHIP, 76.1 IP, 70 SO, 35 BB
Advanced Stats: 107 ERA+, 21.3 K%, 10.7 BB%, 4.66 xERA, 4.04 FIP, 4.09 xFIP, 0.9 fWAR, 1.1 bWAR
Rundown
The New York Mets gave veteran starting pitcher Griffin Canning a one-year deal worth only $4.25 million in December of 2024. Canning was coming off a terrible season and the hope was this low-risk investment would see him develop into a pitcher that can be effective in the back-half of the Mets’ rotation. The outlook of that happening was grim as Canning was coming off a 2024 season where he owned the third-highest ERA in the majors among qualified pitchers at 5.19 despite making 32 appearances.
Well, it looked like president of baseball operations David Stearns and his staff may have struck gold as Canning had a 3.77 ERA deep into June; the lowest of his career. Unfortunately, a torn Achilles on June 26 ended his breakout season at 76 1/3 innings a 7-3 record and 70 strikeouts.
Up until last year, Canning’s best season came in 2023 when he posted a 4.32 ERA across 127 innings. He did have a season where he had a 3.99 ERA, however, it was only over a 56 1/3 inning sample size. In all, his career ERA sits at 4.65 and he owns a 4.68 FIP.
As for his breakout with the Mets, despite the final numbers looking strong it was certainly and up-and-down year prior to injury. Canning had his season ERA down to a 2.36 mark after his May 11 start against the Chicago Cubs. However, since that point, and leading up to his injury on June 26, the numbers were trending down as he allowed 21 earned runs over 34 1/3 innings (5.50 ERA). This also included a stretch where he allowed 13 earned runs over three starts.
A deeper dive into Canning’s numbers painted a pitcher who had been benefitting greatly from a high ground-ball rate (51.6%; 87th percentile) despite not striking out a ton of batters (21.4%; 41st percentile), allowing hard contact (5th percentile average exit velocity, 11th percentile hard-hit rate), and walking a decent bit (10.4%; 16th percentile). It appeared that these cons to his game were catching up to him as regression was hitting prior to injury.
His 4.66 xERA and 4.04 FIP both indicated that the 3.77 ERA was deceiving. There was a real chance, if he remained healthy Canning’s numbers were slowly going to revert back closer to the aforementioned 4.65 career mark.
Contract
As mentioned, Canning only made $4.25 million prior to 2025. The ruptured Achilles in June means Canning can miss a portion of 2026 as well. Given this, any deal for the 29-year-old would almost certainly be a “prove-it” deal with potentially some type of team option in the second year. Bottom line, it would not cost much of anything to bring Canning in and give him a shot to seize a rotation rule when he is fully healthy sometime early on in 2026.
Recommendation: Stay Away
The looming regression that Canning seemingly had on the horizon before his injury in 2025 is concerning. You add this with a major injury and the chances he is able to merge into a legit rotation arm seems low. Not to mention, Canning’s overall career sample does leave a lot to be desired. The Mets would be much better served to look elsewhere in assembling their rotation.
Canning would not be awful as a No. 7 or 8 type option to have once the season starts and he is fully healthy. However, again, nothing is a given with how he will performance post-injury. For this reason, a reunion would not make much sense.
