When Jonah Tong reached the major leagues, he arrived carrying one of the most impressive resumes in the minor leagues. The Mets prospect overwhelmed hitters throughout 2025, posting a 14.17 K/9, 1.69 FIP, and 2.21 xERA across two levels. Every indicator pointed toward a pitcher capable of generating swings and misses at an elite rate.
Tong modelled his delivery after two-time Cy Young award winner Tim Lincecum. Essentially, throwing a full-body over-the-top motion that generated elite spin and carried an extreme 64-degree arm angle, the highest of any MLB starting pitcher at the time of his debut.
Yet the version of Tong currently pitching in Queens looks very different from the one that dominated the minor leagues. The strikeouts have decreased, the results have been uneven, and a closer look reveals that the Mets are intentionally reshaping his profile to reach his full potential as a starter rather than settling for the ceiling of a dominant two-pitch reliever. The question is no longer whether Tong can miss bats; it is whether New York can transition him into an elite high-floor starter in this league.
The easiest way to evaluate Jonah Tong’s first two major league stints is through the results. In 2025, he posted a 7.71 ERA during his rushed debut for a desperate Mets squad. A strikeout rate that has fallen to 14.9% after he struck out more than 14 batters per nine innings in the minor leagues.
But focusing on the results alone misses the bigger story.
Tong’s first taste in 2025 resulted in a 4.96 xERA, suggesting the struggles were real rather than simply unlucky. While his 2026 results have improved on the surface, underlying indicators suggest the pitcher who arrived in Queens is no longer generating the same level of swing-and-miss that fueled his rise through the system. The fastball still sits in the mid-to-upper 90s, the Vulcan changeup remains a featured weapon, yet hitters are making far more contact than they did throughout his climb up the minor league ladder.
What has changed?
According to a previous analysis by Jared Greenspan, Jonah Tong’s average arm angle sat around 64 degrees during his rise through the minor leagues, the highest among all major league starting pitchers, as he carried it to the big leagues. That steep release height helped create the unique movement profile that allowed Tong to dominate minor league hitters, generating an uncomfortable attack angle, which led to a lot of swing-and-miss.
In 2026, that arm angle has dropped dramatically. In his first appearance of 2026 against the Marlins on May 22nd, Tong’s arm angle measured just 52 degrees, and Baseball Savant currently lists him at 51 degrees. 32 MLB starting pitchers now release the ball at a higher arm angle than Tong, meaning he went from the most extreme over-the-top in the span of one offseason to a roughly league-average over-the-top angle.
That shift is not a minor tweak. Lowering a pitcher’s arm slot fundamentally changes how the baseball moves. A lower release point typically sacrifices some vertical approach angle in exchange for greater horizontal movement, creating a different set of strengths and weaknesses. Rather than attacking hitters from an unusually steep angle, Tong is now operating from a release height much closer to league norms.
That raises an important question: if the higher arm slot helped make Tong one of the most dominant strikeout pitchers in the minor leagues, why would the Mets change it?
The answer may lie in a pitch Tong added alongside the mechanical adjustment.
The cutter is the centerpiece of that developmental vision, and the early data offers both reason for optimism and reason for patience.
At 92.0 mph, Tong’s cutter sits nearly two miles per hour above the right-handed pitcher’s cutter velocity, a meaningful gap that gives the pitch legitimate bat-missing potential. On the movement plot, it shows glove-side separation from his four-seamer, which clusters arm-side with minimal horizontal movement. The shape IS THERE. The separation IS REAL. But the magnitude of that glove-side break is not yet at the level that generates consistent swing-and-miss.
The pitch values reflect that gap. The cutter carries an RV/100 of -0.3 and an xwOBA of .413. A 25.0% whiff rate suggests some bat-missing ability, but the strikeout rate on the pitch sits at zero percent. Hitters are missing it occasionally, but not paying the full price when they do make contact.
The contrast with his changeup tells the fuller story. While the cutter is still finding its footing, Tong’s changeup has been genuinely elite. The pitch is posting an xwOBA of just .121 and an RV/100 of +2.8. That pitch is already a weapon. The cutter needs to become one too, particularly against left-handed hitters, before Tong can fully become what the Mets are building him into.
With the arm-angle change, the cutter addition makes more sense. Lowering Tong’s arm angle creates more horizontal movement and opens the door for a larger pitch arsenal, which is becoming a league-wide trend. The cutter gives Tong a glove-side offering that can move in toward left-handed hitters while creating a complementary separation from his four-seam and changeup.
The best clue to what the Mets are building may come from pitchers who already operate within a similar mix to what Tong has dominated with in the minor leagues.
Kevin Gausman and Trey Yesavage represent two of the more compelling case studies in modern starting pitching. Both operate with a relatively simple arsenal built around a fastball and a diving offspeed pitch, up and down with some tunnelling of four-seamers at the bottom of the zone. Gausman pairs his four-seam with a splitter that generates elite vertical separation, sending hitters’ eyes in two completely different directions. Yesavage follows a nearly identical blueprint. The results speak for themselves: Gausman owns a 3.33 xERA and a 27% whiff rate, while Yesavage has been even sharper at a 2.50 xERA and a 29.6% whiff rate.
But the Mets are not building two-pitch pitchers.
The arm angle drop and tweaks this season suggest New York has a different ceiling in mind for Tong. Where Gausman and Yesavage have found success by maximizing two pitches at a high level, the Mets appear to believe that Tong’s long-term viability as a starter requires a third offering, one that attacks a different quadrant of the zone and prevents hitters from sitting on the fastball-changeup combination that has defined his profile since he was drafted.
The cutter is that third pitch. At 92.0 mph with glove-side movement from his four-seam, it gives Tong something Gausman and Yesavage don’t need, but the Mets clearly believe he does, a way to attack left-handed hitters on a completely different horizontal plane. Right now, he’s throwing it 4% of the time against lefties. Gausman and Yesavage use their primary offspeed pitch more than 40% of the time against left-handed hitters. That usage gap tells you exactly how far Tong is from the finished version of what New York is building.
The Mets aren’t asking Tong to be Gausman or Yesavage. They’re asking him to be a more complete starter. Whether the cutter becomes the pitch that gets him there is the central question of his 2026 season.
