The Mets have agreed to a three-year, $75M contract with left-hander Sean Manaea, in accordance with a report from Jeff Passan of ESPN. Jon Heyman of the New York Post notes that the deal is pending a bodily.
Manaea, 33 in February, is now poised to signal with the Mets for the second consecutive offseason. Within the first week of January earlier this 12 months, the southpaw landed with New York on a two-year deal that assured him $28M and included an opt-out following the 2024 marketing campaign. It was the second winter in a row that noticed Manaea signal a two-year take care of an opt-out after he signed with the Giants on a $25M guarantee throughout the 2022-23 offseason.
That first contract in San Francisco was inked on the heels of a brutal 2022 season in San Diego that noticed Manaea wrestle to a 4.96 ERA (76 ERA+) with a 4.53 FIP in 158 innings of labor. His time with the Giants went higher than that; whereas his 4.44 ERA (94 ERA+) was nonetheless beneath common, he nonetheless entered the offseason boasting a lot stronger peripherals (3.91 FIP, 3.83 SIERA) and a stable run of begins down the stretch that September the place he posted a 2.25 ERA and three.21 FIP.
The Mets believed that portended higher days in Manaea’s future, and it definitely did. The lefty emerged as a high quality mid-rotation possibility for New York in 2024 as he posted a 3.47 ERA (114 ERA+) with a 3.83 FIP in a career-high 181 2/3 innings of labor throughout 32 begins. With a profession 12 months within the books forward of his third consecutive journey to free company, it appeared as if Manaea was searching for longer-term safety. The Mets opted to tag the lefty with the qualifying provide on the outset of the winter. Nonetheless, it was hardly a shock when Manaea rejected that one-year, $21.05M provide and entered the open market anyway. In spite of everything, the lefty got here into the winter ranked by MLBTR because the No. 10 free agent accessible on our annual Top 50 MLB Free Agents checklist and the No. 5 starter behind solely Corbin Burnes, Blake Snell, Max Fried and Jack Flaherty.
Early within the offseason, the QO encumbered Manaea led a number of golf equipment that possible would’ve had an curiosity in a mid-rotation veteran like him to show in direction of different choices. The Angels, Dodgers and Cubs turned within the early days of the offseason to unencumbered free brokers like Yusei Kikuchi, Snell and Matthew Boyd fairly than delve into the markets of certified free brokers like Manaea, Nick Pivetta, or Luis Severino.
Nevertheless, that’s not a consideration for the Mets, as reuniting with Manaea solely prices the hypothetical draft decide they’d’ve obtained had he signed elsewhere. That’s allowed Manaea to land a wholesome assure regardless of a comparatively small checklist of groups related to him this winter: his three-year, $75M deal exceeds the three-year, $60M assure MLBTR predicted for him on the outset of the offseason, however that’s hardly a shock provided that nearly each beginning pitcher’s contract has exceeded expectations.
For New York, a reunion with Manaea is a possible capstone on the membership’s efforts to reconstruct its beginning rotation after he, Severino and Jose Quintana hit the open market final month. The membership added Frankie Montas and Clay Holmes to their rotation combine earlier this winter. That duo presents little stability, given Montas’s struggles in 2025 and that Holmes final began a recreation within the majors in 2018. Manaea supplies that much-needed stability whereas slotting in direction of the entrance of a rotation, together with gifted right-hander Kodai Senga and younger southpaw David Peterson.
With depth choices like Paul Blackburn, Tylor Megill and Griffin Canning all within the wings to assist cowl for potential accidents, it might hardly be a shock if Manaea’s return wrapped up the staff’s rotation additions for the winter. That doesn’t imply the membership is finished fully, nonetheless. Even with a hefty 2025 payroll that RosterResource estimates will land simply shy of $280M as issues stand, that also leaves $56M of room to work with earlier than the Mets match their 2024 determine. That ought to depart loads of room for the Mets to signal a nook infield bat to pair with Mark Vientos, whether or not that finally ends up being a reunion with Pete Alonso or an alternate possibility similar to Alex Bregman and maybe bolster different areas of the roster such because the bullpen or the bench.
