Former Angels bust looks like an NL Cy Young contender in his new digs

For years, the Angels have tried and failed to develop young starting pitching. One prominent example of this has been Griffin Canning, now 29 years old, who battled injuries and inconsistencies en route to a 4.78 ERA during his Angels' tenure.

Canning was once the Angels' no. 2-ranked prospect back in 2019 and placed no. 63 on MLB.com's Top 100 list that same year. From those high hopes, he never found his footing, and his Angels' tenure ended on the most sour of notes as the right-hander finished 2024 leading the American League in earned runs allowed.

Going into the offseason, one of the Angels' first orders of business was to jettison Canning, who had one more year of team control, despite their needs in the rotation. The Halos dealt Canning on Halloween to the Atlanta Braves in exchange for Jorge Soler with Atlanta turning around and immediately cutting the struggling starter.

From there, Canning would score a one-year deal to be a depth starter with the New York Mets, initially not factoring into their rotation plans until the likes of Sean Manaea and Frankie Montas went down with injuries during spring training. Now, he's a key member of a starting rotation that ranks second in baseball in ERA at a 2.88 mark.

How have the NY Mets unlocked Griffin Canning when the Angels failed to do so?

Early in the season, Canning had shown signs of acceptable performance with the Mets, but still hadn't proven that he had finally realized his frontline starter potential. However, as the season has gone on, Canning has only gotten better.

Through nine starts he's racked up 47.1 innings pitched and posted a 2.47 ERA, which are heights he'd never seen while toeing the rubber for the Angels. The peripherals still don't completely buy in to him being an ace, however, his 3.89 FIP and 3.77 xERA are still very good, and rank as the best marks of his career.

The tweaks the Mets have made with Canning have been simple but effective. Canning is using his slider more this season, 34% of the time versus 24% last year, mostly at the expense of his curveball, which is down to 4% utilization from 11% last season. He's also throwing a few fewer fastballs, coming in at 35% versus 37% last year.

The change makes sense as his fastball is merely average, his curveball has been a below average pitch for the majority of his career, but his slider and changeup have consistently been his best offerings.

Moreover, Canning is throwing those off-speed and breaking pitches in the zone more often. His overall Zone% is up, sitting at 53.1%, a shift from his career mark of 49.1% and last year's 47.8%. The only other time he'd ever consistently thrown more than half his pitches in the zone was in 2023, when he recorded a 52.9% mark and posted a 4.32 ERA, one of the best marks of his career.

Attacking the zone with more than just the fastball has helped Canning keep hitters off balance, allowing him to generate more groundballs. His groundball rate to date in 2025 is 54.5%, well above his career mark of 40.7%.

Unsurprisingly, keeping the ball on the ground has helped Canning limit damage and allowed him to limit hard contact (33.3% in 2025 versus 36.8% career). He's also seen his strikeouts rebound, posting 8.75 K/9 after seeing that number dip to a career low 6.82 last season.

It remains to be seen if Canning can keep this up over the course of a full season. While there's a lot to like, his 91.3% left on base rate is unsustainably high, and his 1.29 WHIP isn't drastically different from the 1.33 mark he's recorded over his career.

What has changed, however, is how the tweaks to his pitch utilization have influenced hitters' ability to do serious damage against him. By keeping the ball on the ground, he's turned what previously went for extra base hits into singles, and the return of his strikeouts has helped him escape jams and avoid giving up big innings.

Canning is still a prime regression candidate, and likely won't continue to pitch like a Cy Young caliber starter, however, the changes he's made are real and the effect could be him finally becoming a competent member of a starting rotation on a good team.

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