Sources – LHP Sean Manaea returns to Mets on 3-year, $75M deal

Left-hander Sean Manaea and the New York Mets have agreed to a three-year, $75 million contract, sources told ESPN, keeping the veteran with the team he helped lead to a surprise appearance in the National League Championship Series.

Manaea, 32, blossomed into a front-half rotation starter with the Mets this year, going 12-6 with a 3.47 ERA and striking out 184 over 181⅔ innings pitched. The deal, pending a physical, would more than double Manaea’s career earnings and continue a winter of lavish spending for the Mets.

Last winter, Manaea signed with the Mets for two years and $28 million. The contract contained an opt-out, which Manaea exercised. Declining New York’s one-year qualifying offer of $21.05 million, he hit free agency and drew interest from a host of teams.

The starting pitching market in particular has been a boon for players, with Manaea the sixth pitcher to sign a free agent deal that exceeds $21 million per year and the 12th to surpass $13 million in average annual value. Manaea left a strong enough impression on the Mets — both on the field, with his new arm slot leading to a standout year, and in the clubhouse, where he developed into a team leader — to add him to the Mets’ winter roster. proved too alluring to pass up.

Already, the Mets had handed out the largest contract in sports history, a 15-year, $765 million deal for outfielder Juan Soto. And with Luis Severino and Jose Quintana free agents, they filled their rotation with right-handers Frankie Montas and Clay Holmes, the latter of whom plans to move from a relief role to a starter. In addition, the Mets had signed right-handed starter Griffin Canning. Their total free agent spending this winter is $916.25 million.

New York’s desire for Manaea’s return was strong enough that he joined Blake Snell, Max Fried and Nathan Eovaldi in this winter’s club of starting pitchers making $25 million a year. Since going to Kansas City with the 34th pick in the 2013 draft, Manaea has been a physical gem, his 6-foot-5, 250-pound frame creating deception that helped his low-90s fastball to play up.

With the Mets, Manaea returned to a much more sinker-heavy arsenal after two years of almost exclusively throwing four-seam fastballs. That, along with the loss of his arm slot to mimic NL Cy Young Award winner Chris Sale, did wonders for Manaea’s production and made him look like the 2021 version of himself.

He also excelled in the postseason, allowing two runs over five innings in a wild-card round start and pitching seven innings of one-run ball in a division series win against Philadelphia. After giving up two earned runs during a Game 2 NLCS victory in Los Angeles, Manaea was ejected from Game 6 in the third inning of what could have been his final start for New York.

It wasn’t, and he will spend his 10th season in Queens after a career in which he has thrown 1,184⅓ innings with a 4.00 ERA, 1,109 strikeouts, 335 walks and 158 home runs allowed.

The Mets, meanwhile, could go in several directions to further complement their addition of Soto to the lineup. First baseman Pete Alonso and third baseman Alex Bregman are the top remaining free agents, and the Mets could re-sign Alonso or sign Bregman and move Mark Vientos from first to third. The Mets have also been betting on the free-agent outfield market, sources said, and they also remain active in trade talks.