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Not all seasons are created equally.
Rookie years are for making mistakes and learning from them. Final seasons are for curtain calls and flowers. Contract years are for playing your best baseball in hopes of a big payday.
2025 was Ryan Helsley’s contract year, and it didn’t go exactly as he’d hoped.
Entering the season, the flamethrowing right-hander looked like one of the best relievers in the game. His previous three seasons in St. Louis included two All-Star appearances, thanks to a 1.83 ERA, more than a dozen strikeouts per nine innings, a WHIP under 1.000 and 82 saves.
In fact, in 2024, Helsley led all of baseball in saves with 49, one of just two pitchers to even reach 40.
All signs were pointing up, and his contract year didn’t even start poorly.
Entering play in June, the righty had a 3.00 ERA but had surrendered an earned run in just four of his 21 appearances. Despite allowing a run in each of the four games that followed, Helsley settled down as August approached, posting a 0.82 ERA in his final 11 games for the Cardinals.
That late run of quality innings, plus an impressive track record, helped St. Louis net three prospects in exchange for Helsley at the deadline. Two of the prospects from the Mets are ranked in the Cardinals’ top 30, according to MLB Pipeline, including eighth-ranked Jesus Baez.
But things couldn’t have gone much worse for Helsley in New York.
In his first dozen games as a Met, the right-hander allowed a whopping 14 runs and walked seven while only striking out 11.
What went wrong for Helsley in New York and how can he return to form in 2026?
The answer appears to be pretty simple: figure out the fastball.
Easier said than done.
Every year since 2022, Helsley has been in the 99th percentile in fastball velocity. Last season, the righty’s heater was the seventh-fastest in the game, among qualified pitchers, at 99.3 mph. In 2023, the four-seamer’s run value was plus-11. In ‘24, it dropped to plus-three, but it still played well with his dominant slider.
Last season, the fastball had a run value of negative-15, the fourth-lowest in the game among qualified pitchers. The .422 batting average against was more than 40 points higher than the next worst.
But the physical characteristics of the pitch didn’t change much.
It’s important to remember in these comparisons that Helsley was dominant in 2024 with an ERA just over 2.00. His fastball wasn’t so dominant, as batters hit .276 against it, but it was significantly better than 2025.
So, it might be surprising to learn that with a much worse fastball on the stat sheet the pitch’s velocity dropped by a mere 0.3 mph, the spin rate didn’t drop from the previous season, the vertical drop remained the same, and the active spin rate dropped by just one percent. The only notable difference was one fewer inch of horizontal break.
So, perhaps it’s location rather than physical characteristics. Oh contraire, mon frère.
In 2024, Helsley threw 423 four-seam fastballs with 146 in the heart of the zone, roughly 35 percent. In 2025, Helsley threw 443 four-seam fastballs, with 154 in the heart of the zone, roughly 35 percent. Comparing the two seasons, the whiff rate on those heart-of-the-zone pitches was within 0.3 percent, and the spin rate within seven rotations per minute.
Rian Johnson, meet your new “Knives Out” mystery.
Did a one-inch change in horizontal break really make the difference? Is it as simple as pointing to a 50-point jump in batting average in balls in play? What changed in New York?
Whatever the answers to these fastball questions may be, they aren’t very visible. But if Helsley wants to bounce back in 2026, he’ll need to search for the solutions.
