The Mets were busy in the weeks leading up to their historic, 15-year agreement with Juan Soto, but it had been oddly quiet in Queens since Soto’s momentous introductory news conference on Dec. 12. That finally changed this week, with reports that the Mets have agreed to a three-year, $75 million deal to keep left-handed pitcher Sean Manaea in Queens following a terrific, breakout campaign for the 32-year-old southpaw.
Beyond their pursuit of Soto, one of the biggest storylines for the Mets entering this winter was how they would choose to rebuild their rotation. In Manaea, Luis Severino and Jose Quintana, New York had its three top starters from 2024 hitting free agency at the same time.
In response, the Mets first signed right-hander Frankie Montas to a two-year, $34 million deal. Then, not long after Severino inked a surprising, three-year deal to lead the A’s rotation as the franchise transitions to Sacramento, the Mets signed a second starting pitcher — and not one that many expected. Clay Holmes, the recent bullpen standout for the Yankees, agreed to a three-year, $38 million deal with the Mets and will attempt to transition back to a starting role he has not occupied since his rookie year with Pittsburgh in 2018.
Montas and Holmes represented two intriguing steps toward assembling a new rotation, as both came with considerable questions based on their recent performance and roles. But their signings appeared to be a vote of confidence in the club’s pitching development infrastructure, which has begun to prove its mettle with the successes of Severino and Manaea, among others.
The starting pitching market heated up significantly at the winter meetings in December. But as a tidal wave of big contracts and blockbuster trades involving front-end arms came and went, Manaea remained unsigned. Meanwhile, having added Montas, Holmes and another depth piece in Griffin Canning, the new Mets rotation had started to take shape. Add an effective holdover in lefty David Peterson and, perhaps most importantly, a hopefully healthy Kodai Senga, and the Mets appeared to have the foundation for a solid starting staff. But for a club with World Series aspirations — and one that just gave $765 million to Soto — it felt a bit light.
Manaea changes that. The true upside for this staff still hinges largely on Senga’s durability, as he offers the most impactful potential. But Manaea solidifies the middle of New York’s rotation and helps balance out the questions present in Montas’ and Holmes’ profiles. And with top pitching prospect Brandon Sproat potentially knocking on the door in 2025, the Mets also have a healthy amount of depth in case of injury or underperformance.
Manaea’s massive deal to stay in Queens is another pivotal plot point in a major-league career that has spanned both coasts but began in the heartland. Relatively unknown to scouts as a high schooler growing up in a small town in northwest Indiana, Manaea stayed close to home for his collegiate career, heading to Terre Haute to play for a strong Indiana State program. He won a rotation job as a freshman and broke onto the national radar with an even bigger sophomore season in 2012. The buzz in scouting circles built further that summer, when Manaea was spectacular pitching in the prestigious Cape Cod League, skyrocketing his prospect stock to the point that he entered the following spring as a legitimate candidate to be the first overall pick in the 2013 MLB Draft.
But injuries limited Manaea’s velocity and consistency as a junior. While his supreme talent still enabled a sterling 1.47 ERA against mid-major competition, teams became wary of investing in the breakout southpaw at the very top of the draft. As a result, Manaea fell to Kansas City with the 34th pick, but the Royals demonstrated their belief in his potential by giving him a $3.55 million signing bonus, the fifth-highest figure awarded to any player in the 2013 draft.
Just two years later, Manaea was traded to the A’s as the primary prize in the return for Ben Zobrist, who helped the Royals win the World Series later that same year. In Oakland, Manaea established himself as a reliable big-league starting pitcher, with his brightest moment coming in 2018, when he hurled a no-hitter against the Red Sox. Following a stellar 2021 campaign in which he amassed 191 strikeouts over 32 starts, Manaea was the fourth and final major piece dealt during Oakland’s dramatic roster teardown entering the 2022 season. Not long after Chris Bassitt was traded to the Mets, Matt Olson to the Braves and Matt Chapman to the Blue Jays, Manaea was sent to the Padres.
Joining an ascendent Padres club seemed to offer a big stage on which Manaea could thrive in the final year of his contract before free agency. Instead, the left-hander took a sizable step back in San Diego. His 4.96 ERA in 2022 ranked 59th out of 62 pitchers who tossed at least 150 innings. He failed to crack the Padres’ playoff rotation and was blasted by the Phillies in a disastrous relief appearance in NLCS Game 4. Rather than hitting the open market as a premier rotation option, as previously projected, Manaea entered free agency on a far less optimistic note.
He remained on the West Coast, signing a two-year, $25 million deal with the Giants in hopes of reestablishing his value. And though he bounced back and forth between the rotation and the bullpen in San Francisco, Manaea pitched well enough to opt out after 2023 and test the free-agent waters again. This time, an East Coast club came calling: the Mets, in need of rotation reinforcements, offered him a two-year-with-an-opt-out pact similar to the one he signed with San Francisco, this time for $28 million.
And in Queens, Manaea flourished. On a delightful 2024 Mets club that had no shortage of lovable characters, Manaea was a fundamental part of the team’s success both on and off the field. The key turning point for him individually came in late July, when he watched eventual NL Cy Young winner Chris Sale dominate at Citi Field and decided to drop his own arm slot in hopes of roughly replicating the challenging arm angle that Sale has long featured.
Having long succeeded on the basis of deception and careful command of his arsenal, more so than overpowering opponents, this adjustment took Manaea’s funk to a whole new level. He had been solid over the first four months of the 2024 season, but this mechanical tweak, in conjunction with his leaning heavier into his sinker usage, unlocked a different version of him down the stretch. In Manaea’s next outing and first with his lower arm slot, he struck out 11 Minnesota Twins across seven scoreless innings in his best start of the season.
The splits are stark:
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20 starts before dropping his arm slot: 106 IP, 3.74 ERA, 4.18 FIP, 22.6% strikeout rate, 10.1% walk rate, .671 OPS allowed
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12 starts after: 75 2/3 IP, 3.09 ERA, 3.35 FIP, 28.4% strikeout rate, 6.2% walk rate, .538 OPS allowed
This new-and-improved Manaea sustained into October, with the grand finale of his breakout coming in NLDS Game 3, when he blanked the Phillies for seven frames before departing to a raucous Citi Field in the top of the eighth. He also showed well in a win over the Dodgers in NLCS Game 2 before faltering in his second run-in with the eventual champs in Game 6. By that point, though, Manaea had earned the trust and adoration of the Mets faithful.
With his fantastic season ensuring he would opt out and become a free agent for the third straight winter, it was no guarantee that he would find his way back to the Mets. But in the end, a reunion was in store. The Mets chapter of Manaea’s career will not be a one-year fling.
As for the rest of this winter, maybe the Mets have another big rotation addition in store; Corbin Burnes is still out there, after all, and Steve Cohen’s spending power remains more formidable than that of any other owner. The trade market is still active, with ace-level arms such as Luis Castillo and Dylan Cease reportedly available for the right price.
But more likely, the next stage of the Mets’ winter will shift the focus back to their position-player group. That starts first and foremost with free agent Pete Alonso, whose potential landing spots seem to diminish by the day, given the recent flurry of transactions involving first basemen.
Pairing one of the best hitters on the planet in Soto with another MVP candidate in Francisco Lindor makes the top of the Mets’ lineup as dangerous as any. Rising slugger Mark Vientos and franchise staple Brandon Nimmo represent stellar bats as well. Beyond those four, though, questions remain regarding the potency of the lineup as currently constituted — especially if Alonso lands elsewhere.
As important as retaining Manaea was, weighing whether or not to keep Alonso in Queens looms as a far more consequential decision.
