How the Mets landed rookie sensation Kodai Senga and what it means for this

NEW YORK — Already impressed with Kodai Senga’s right arm, the New York Mets’ top decision-makers studied his face, eyes and body language. Before sitting down for their first meeting on a mid-November day at Citi Field, Senga toured the stadium while club officials noted his interactions with confidants.

Manager Buck Showalter spent a lot of the day observing Senga in, to borrow from basketball parlance, “off-ball” moments.

“He had a competitive gleam in his eye,” Showalter said. “You could tell he wasn’t fearful of the competition.”

The Mets entered the meeting wondering how Senga, then a top free-agent pitcher from Japan, would handle the room, what questions he’d ask and what things he valued most.

“Playing here, it’s tough,” pitching coach Jeremy Hefner said. “Not only is it the biggest city in the world, the biggest baseball city in the world, you have all these things like needing to adjust to the ball, the food, the dirt, the travel, the media, everything else. It was going to take a special person to adapt quickly in Year 1.”

As Senga, 30, aims to put the finishing touches on an impressive rookie season with the Mets, it’s worth revisiting how the organization scouted and recruited him. That’s because their plans worked, and New York may need to draw from the experience again this offseason.

Starting with their meeting with Senga, the Mets plotted a path to best accommodate him in a new country and keep him healthy. In return, Senga has produced on a high level. In 25 starts and 143 1/3 innings, Senga owns a 3.08 ERA/3.47 FIP and 1.22 WHIP. Among qualified major-league pitchers, Senga’s 29.3 percent strikeout rate ranks fifth. While he also sports the third-worst walk rate (11 percent), he has held batters to the fourth-stingiest batting average (.208) because of an ability to evade contact, especially of the hard-hit variety. In a year in which so much went wrong for the Mets, Senga’s sensational season stands out as a rare positive.

After a hugely disappointing season, the upcoming offseason projects to be another consequential one for the Mets. They again should be in the market for starting pitching, with Japanese star Yoshinobu Yamamoto profiling as a sensible fit. Regardless of whom Mets owner Steve Cohen selects to be president of baseball operations, general manager Billy Eppler is expected to stay with the organization. Over the winter, Eppler’s efforts helped the Mets emerge as an attractive destination to Senga. Could the Mets make a similar impression on others this offseason?

“Obviously, I don’t know what other teams would be offering to do for other players or what other teams would’ve done for me,” Senga said via translator Hiro Fujiwara, “but it’s a fact that what the Mets have done for me already has worked in a positive…