Was Sean Manaea the Final Piece of the Mets New Rotation?

Throughout this offseason, the New York Mets have stolen most headlines for their pursuit of top position players, with their historic signing on Juan Soto and now their negotiations with homegrown star Pete Alonso.

Yet with all of the attention those two stars have generated, the tallest task for David Stearns and the Mets front office has really been to rebuild most of their starting rotation through free agency.

The Mets top three starters in 2024 all hit free agency as soon as the Mets were eliminated in Game 6 of the NLCS, with Sean Manaea, Luis Severino and Jose Quintana all hitting the open market.

That trio combined for the most innings pitched the Mets have gotten from three starters since 2019, when Jacob deGrom, Zack Wheeler and Noah Syndergaard all cleared 195 innings pitched.

Each of the Mets top three starters eclipsed 170 innings pitched in 2024, and all reached that mark with an ERA below 4.00. Of the other 30 teams in MLB, only the Phillies, Mariners and Royals had three pitchers who accomplished both of those feats.

The difference is that those teams retained all of those players heading into this offseason, where the Mets could have lost them all in free agency. To combat the potential loss of these arms, the Mets extended qualifying offers to both Severino and Manaea, but both pitchers declined.

Severino went on to sign the largest contract in Athletics franchise history, signing a three-year, $67 million deal before the Winter Meetings. Meanwhile Manaea and Quintana have both remained on the open market, with the former receiving more buzz coming off his breakout season.

Manaea really assumed the ace role for the Mets in 2024, and it looks like he is coming back for more, as Jeff Passan reported early Monday morning that Manaea is heading back to Queens.

Mets Sign Sean Manaea to Three-year, $75 Million Deal

It was long rumored that the Mets were interested in retaining Sean Manaea, but the left-hander had really become the top left-handed starter on the market after both Blake Snell and Max Fried signed.

Manaea will turn 33 years old in February, and this marked his third consecutive trip to free agency.

Back in 2023, Manaea signed a two-year $25 million deal with the San Francisco Giants, which included an opt-out after he made $10 million during the 2023 season. Manaea hit free agency a little over a year ago, and went on to sign his first contract with the Mets.

The deal was a two-year, $27 million contract, which again included an opt-out after the first season. Manaea was guaranteed a spot in the Mets rotation, after pitching in a swing man role with the Giants, and he earned $14.5 million for the 2024 season.

The soon-to-be 33-year-old pitched to a 3.47 ERA across 181 2/3 innings pitched, and established himself as the Mets ace down the stretch when they made their playoff push.

Now, after turning down a $21.05 million qualifying offer, Manaea lands back in New York on a deal that will more than double his career earnings.

Manaea is reportedly set to sign a three-year, $75 million deal, which will pay him an average annual salary of $25 million per season. With this being his last chance to cash in on a long-term deal, there is every chance that Manaea was holding out for a four-year deal, but in the end he returns to a place where he enjoyed arguably the best season of his career.

It was clear that Manaea enjoyed his time in New York, and now he gets to run it back, but with a new $765 million teammate in Juan Soto. He also will be paired up with a former teammate from his days in Oakland, with Frankie Montas having opened up the Mets spending spree last month.

Mets Have Been Busy Adding Pitching

The Mets entered the offseason with the task of having to replace 534 innings pitched from their 2024 starting rotation. That is not easy to accomplish in one offseason.

The first move President of Baseball Operations David Stearns made was to sign right-handed pitcher Frankie Montas to a two-year, $34 million deal.

Montas is coming off a season where he pitched to a 4.84 ERA in 150 2/3 innings pitched.

This was his first full year since a shoulder surgery that cost him the end of the 2022 season, and nearly all of 2023.

Montas was traded from the Cincinnati Reds to the Brewers at the deadline, and saw his stuff tick up once he got to Milwaukee. Similar to when the Mets signed Manaea and Severino a year ago, they identified Montas as a strong candidate to bounce back under their direction in 2025.

This is part of a newfound identity the Mets are hoping to build on as an organization. They opened their brand-new pitching lab last year, and to great success.

Manaea and Severino were not only the test-case for what the Mets could do, they became advocates that Montas cited as part of the reason he signed with the club.

With a strong fastball and splitter, Montas has the makings of being the next success-story for the Mets. If not, he at least provides veteran innings on a short-term deal.

The next signing for the Mets was more of a surprise move to address their rotation, with New York poaching Clay Holmes from the Yankees. Holmes was a two-time All-Star in the other borough in New York, but as a reliever.

The Mets intend to use Holmes in the starting rotation, marking his first time getting looks as a starter since he was back with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2018.

The 31-year-old has produced elite groundball rates with his sinker out of the bullpen, and the Mets are betting on his ability to translate that success into their rotation, similar to what we saw from Reynaldo Lopez and the Braves last season.

Holmes signed a three-year, $38 million deal, which will either become a great bargain if he can find success in the rotation, or will be a relatively fair price if he ends up back in the pen as a late-inning reliever.

To hedge their bet after taking a gamble on Holmes’ ability to start, the Mets added some depth behind him in the rotation when they later signed Griffin Canning to a one-year, $4.25 million deal.

Canning is coming off a rough season in which he led the American League in earned runs allowed, but did so while setting a career-high with 171 2/3 innings pitched. The Angels dumped his salary in the Jorge Soler trade with the Braves, and Atlanta went on to non-tender him.

With that said, Canning was one of 45 pitchers who reached 170 innings pitched in 2024, and is only one year removed from pitching to a 4.32 ERA in 2023. Canning will enter a competition with last year’s trade deadline acquisition Paul Blackburn and Tylor Megill for starts at the end of the Mets rotation.

Manaea was still the final piece the Mets had to add to make everything else fall into place though, giving the Mets five viable starting pitchers who enter camp with a near-guaranteed rotation spot, and then a handful of depth arms competing for sixth starter role.

Are the Mets Done Adding to Their Rotation?

With Montas, Holmes, Canning and Manaea, the Mets have signed four starting pitchers to MLB deals this offseason.

Most teams have only inked one or two starters at this stage, if any at all. The Mets have spent over $150 million on their rotation, and suddenly the group looks a lot more complete, with plenty of depth to navigate a long season.

Looking at the top of the rotation, the Mets hope that Kodai Senga can return to ace form after an injury-plagued year in 2024.

After a shoulder injury sidelined him until late July, Senga returned to the mound to make one start against the Braves, where he struck out nine batters in 5 1/3 innings pitched. Unfortunately, Senga pulled his calf getting out of the way of a pop-up and missed the rest of the regular season.

Senga returned in October and made two starts, but did not have time to stretch out properly and ended up being more of a detriment than a help to the Mets in the NLCS. Still, Senga is just one year removed from pitching to a 2.98 ERA with 202 strikeouts in his rookie season in 2023.

By making Manaea their top offseason addition, instead of shooting higher for an arm like Corbin Burnes, the Mets are banking on a bounce back from Senga.

They are also making a bet on Manaea to continue the progression we saw at of the end of last season, where he filled into Senga’s shoes as the Mets de facto ace.

Beyond Senga and Manaea, the Mets are hoping to strike lightening in a bottle again with Holmes and Montas, similar to what they had last year with Manaea and Severino.

Finally, David Peterson is expected to grab a rotation spot coming off a breakout season where he pitched to a 2.90 ERA in 21 starts and 121 innings pitched.

Peterson is the lone homegrown starter projected to make the Mets starting rotation, with Tylor Megill set to fight it out with Blackburn and Canning for the final spot. Both Megill and Peterson have one minor league option left, so a bad spring could send either to Triple-A Syracuse, although Megill is far more likely to suffer that fate.

Meanwhile, Jose Butto will likely return to a bullpen role that suited him during the regular season last year, before struggling with it in October.

Butto will enter camp stretched out as a starter, but will have a hard time going up against veteran starters who don’t have the same success pitching out of the pen. However, the good thing for Butto is that he is out of minor league options, so he stands a great chance of making the team come Opening Day.

Outside of winning the sweepstakes for Japanese phenom Roki Sasaki, it would seem like the Mets have enough depth where they should be done adding to their rotation at this stage of the offseason.

Especially with top pitching prospect, and top 100 prospect, Brandon Sproat set to open the season in Triple-A.

You can never have enough pitching depth, but for now it seems like the Mets have done a good enough job building it out for their starting rotation. The next task for this front office is to shift the focus to adding bullpen arms that can set up their closer, Edwin Diaz.