9:49am: As famous by Will Sammon of The Athletic, the deal incorporates $23.25MM in deferred cash that can be paid out over a 10-year interval from 2035 to 2044.
1:01am: The Mets have agreed to a three-year, $75MM contract with left-hander Sean Manaea, in line with a report from Jeff Passan of ESPN. As famous by Jon Heyman of the New York Submit, 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 $28MM 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 cope with an choose out after he signed with the Giants on a $25MM assure in the course of 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 under common however he nonetheless entered the offseason boasting a lot stronger peripherals (3.91 FIP, 3.83 SIERA) and a strong run of begins down the stretch that September the place he posted a 2.25 ERA and three.21 FIP.
The Mets clearly 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 Supply on the outset of the winter, nevertheless it was hardly a shock when Manaea rejected that one-year, $21.05MM supply and entered the open market anyway. In any case, the lefty got here into the winter ranked by MLBTR because the #10 free agent accessible on our annual High 50 MLB Free Brokers record and the #5 starter behind solely Corbin Burnes, Blake Snell, Max Fried, and Jack Flaherty.
Early within the offseason, the truth that Manaea was encumbered by the QO led plenty of golf equipment that seemingly would’ve had 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 reasonably than delve into the markets of certified free brokers like Manaea, Nick Pivetta, or Luis Severino.
That’s not a consideration for the Mets, nonetheless, as reuniting with Manaea solely prices the hypothetical draft decide they might’ve acquired had he signed elsewhere. That’s allowed Manaea to land a wholesome assure regardless of a reasonably small record of groups related to him this winter: his three-year, $75MM deal exceeds the three-year, $60MM assure MLBTR predicted for him on the outset of the offseason however that’s hardly a shock on condition that just about each beginning pitcher’s contract has exceeded expectations. Moreover, it’s in fact doable that the deferred cash in Manaea’s deal drops the web current worth nearer to MLBTR’s prediction.
For New York, a reunion with Manaea serves as a possible capstone on the membership’s efforts to reconstruct its beginning rotation after he, Severino, and Jose Quintana all hit the open market final month. The membership added Frankie Montas and Clay Holmes to their rotation combine earlier this winter, however that duo affords little stability given Montas’s struggles in 2025 and the truth that Holmes final began a recreation within the majors again in 2018. Manaea supplies that much-needed stability whereas slotting in direction of the entrance of a rotation that additionally consists of proficient 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 will hardly be a shock if Manaea’s return wrapped up the group’s rotation additions for the winter. That doesn’t imply the membership is finished completely, nonetheless. Even with a hefty 2025 payroll that RosterResource estimates will land simply shy of $280MM as issues stand, that also leaves $56MM 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 akin to Alex Bregman and maybe bolster different areas of the roster such because the bullpen or the bench.
