When the New York Mets signed pitcher Griffin Canning to a one-year, $4.25 million contract a few days before Christmas, it didn’t really create much of a buzz. And why would it?
Sure, Canning had the pedigree of a second-round pick in 2017 out of the University of California-Los Angeles, and he would need just one full season in the minors before debuting with the Los Angeles Angels in 2019. But through his first five seasons, Canning had statistically been average at best, posting a 25-34 record with a 4.78 ERA, striking out 483 batters in 508 innings.
And it was his desire to better those numbers that Canning said led him to signing with the Mets.
“Sometimes you kind of come into a new environment and somebody might say something a different way or little things like that,” Canning said. “You can kind of feed off the energy of the guys.”
Griffin Canning Welcomes Chance to ‘Dive Into’ Mets Pitching Tools
GettyFormer Los Angeles Angels pitcher Griffin Canning hopes to capitalize on his opportunity with the New York Mets.
You can also feast on the technology that the Mets have been using to help pitchers improve. Now in the third season of their pitching lab, the Mets have become one of the leading MLB teams at incorporating technology into their pitching development.
“I think it would be stupid not to use the technology to get yourself better,” Canning said.
“It’s a little bit different. The Angels might have had all the stuff, but they really didn’t incorporate it. They kind of, no fault of theirs, wanted to give guys the information when they felt they were ready for it because it was overwhelming sometimes. Once [Mets instructors] get some eyes on me, I think we’ll kind of dive into some of that stuff.”
Griffin Canning Named ‘Breakout Candidate’ by Sports Illustrated
Something seems to have clicked for Canning.
In four spring training appearances covering 14.1 innings, Canning struck out 22 batters and posted a 1.88 ERA, and he was named to New York’s starting rotation to open the season. The results also led Sport Illustrated to select Canning as this season’s “breakout candidate” from the Mets.
“It may feel overly optimistic to call Canning, a 28-year-old former top prospect, a breakout candidate,” Tim Capurso wrote. “Injuries and inconsistency have left the former Los Angeles Angels hurler’s potential untapped. Thanks to different pitch sequencing, however, Canning racked up 22 strikeouts in 14 ⅓ innings during a productive spring. He could finally level up in David Stearns’s Mets pitching lab.”
On SNY’s The Mets Pod, Joe Demayo said in hindsight, it probably shouldn’t have come as such a surprise that Canning has produced these numbers. After all, prior to his mostly forgettable 2024 season, Canning had shown some promise with a franchise not known for generating quality pitchers.
“[The Angels] are regarded as one of the worst pitching development staffs across the sport, and the Mets are emerging as one of the best,” Demayo said. “So any time you can take somebody that has shown something in a bad pitching system and put them into a good one, it can breed results.”
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