Grading Sean Manaea's $75 million contract with Mets
12/24/2024 09:35 AM
It almost made too much sense, and it finally became official on Monday when Sean Manaea returned to the New York Mets on a three-year, $75 million deal.
Manaea came to Flushing last offseason as a free agent, signing a two-year, $28 million contract with a player option for the second season. After having one of the best years of his career in 2024, Manaea wisely declined to exercise that option, putting him in position to earn an average of $25 million over the next three seasons.
Overall, Manaea went 12-6 for the Mets with a 3.47 ERA, 1.084 WHIP and 184 strikeouts over 181.2 innings pitched. Even better, he was stellar in three of his four postseason starts as New York went from the National League Wild Card Series to pushing the eventual World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers to six games in the NLCS.
Manaea figures to be ready to ride that momentum into 2025, and with the rest of the Mets’ rotation still sorting itself out, the 32-year-old could find himself as one of the more dependable starters on the staff.
Sean Manaea’s contract fits a Mets team in win-now mode
It doesn’t take a baseball expert or a mathematician to see that Mets owner Steve Cohen has spent nearly $1 billion this offseason to build a 2025 team even better than the 2024 club that came within two games of the World Series. He already brought in Juan Soto on a $765 million deal, took ex-Yankees closer Clay Holmes and made him a starter, and the team remains a serious contender for Pete Alonso and Alex Bregman.
So it’s no surprise to see Manaea back with the Mets on any sort of deal — especially now that Luis Severino is with the Athletics.
Even with “only” Soto and Francisco Lindor anchoring the lineup and Kodai Senga on track to be back and healthy as a No. 1. starter, the Mets are on the short list of World Series favorites. Manaea gives New York the potential to have a lethal front end of the rotation as well.
The other side of it is that Lindor is 30, Senga is 31 and Alonso, if he returns as is widely expected, he will be entering his age 30 season. That won’t be a problem in 2025 but it gives the Mets a clear window of the next few years before those stars start exiting their primes. Cohen has invested heavily and the Mets are built to win right now.
Grading the Sean Manaea contract
If Manaea’s 2024 season was perfectly representative of his entire career, this contract would be a no-brainer A+, particularly for a team with the Mets’ resources. But it’s only fair that we zoom out a bit. Between 2022 and 2023 with the San Diego Padres and San Francisco Giants, he pitched to an 83 ERA+, clearly below league average. Before that, he pretty much alternated good and bad seasons for much of his career.
So there’s some risk. There’s also an element of unknown for us, the non-Mets staff and front office. We don’t know what they were able to unlock in Manaea that could give them confidence to proceed with a $75 million commitment. Giving them the benefit of the doubt but still acknowledging the relative risk, this contract appears to be a great one for both sides.
Sean Manaea contract grade: A-
The post Grading Sean Manaea’s $75 million contract with Mets appeared first on ClutchPoints.
