Yankees Potential Free Agent Target: Sean Manaea

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The left-hander had a career year last season with the Mets. Could he be a candidate to move across town?

At the start of the 2024 season, Sean Manaea was at a crossroads. The former first round draft pick and top-50 prospect had never quite lived up to expectations in Oakland, enduring injury and middling performance before getting shipped off to San Diego before the 2022 season. Now 32, the southpaw had signed with the Mets after opting out of year two of a contract with the Giants, who had employed him mostly as a reliever in a disappointing campaign. Slated to join the Mets' new-look rotation after the team moved on from Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer, Manaea was expected to be, at best, a solid innings eater for a retooling Mets team.

Both he and his new team overperformed. In his ninth big-league season, Manaea went 12-6 with a career-best 3.47 ERA. He was particularly effective after dropping his arm slot on July 30th, going 6-2 with a 3.09 ERA and 83 strikeouts against 18 walks down the stretch, helping lead the Mets to an improbable Wild Card berth. He held his own in the playoffs as well, allowing just three runs across 12 innings in the first two rounds to help lead his team to the NLCS, where the Cinderella run came to an end.

This success was largely keyed by a return to a pitch the veteran had thrown only 16 times in 2023 but which became his primary pitch with New York — the sinker. After opponents hit .275 with a .467 slugging percentage and 19 home runs against it in 2021, Manaea moved away from the pitch, relying instead on his four-seamer. The sinker held batters to a .201 average and .333 slugging last season which, alongside a sweeper which was even more effective and while mixing in four other pitches, helped the southpaw neutralize right-handers consistently for the first time in his career.

After the season, Manaea opted out of his contract once again, hitting the free agent market for the third-straight season. Given his success last year, he should fare better this time around. The Mets offered the hurler the one-year, $21.05 million qualifying offer which he declined, meaning he and his agent Scott Boras expect to command more on the open market. Fangraphs' Ben Clemens projects a three-year, $57 million deal for Manaea.

Are the Yankees likely to be in the mix for his servics at that price? There are some signs pointing towards no. Firstly, the qualifying offer is a barrier. Whichever team signs Manaea will have to surrender a compensatory draft pick to the Mets, unless the Mets re-sign him. Those compensatory picks can have real value (famously, Aaron Judge was selected with a compensatory pick from Cleveland that they incurred from signing Nick Swisher). While the Yankees have been willing to sign some players with compensatory picks attached — including Gerrit Cole — they may not see Manaea as worth that extra investment.

The greater barrier, though, may be a simple matter of roster construction. The Yankees have hemorrhaged position players (Juan Soto, Gleyber Torres, Alex Verdugo) and relievers (Clay Holmes, Tommy Kahnle, Tim Hill) from their pennant-winning 2024 squad to free agency. Their rotation, on the other hand, is already at least six men deep, with Cole, Carlos Rodón, Clarke Schmidt, Luis Gil, Marcus Stroman, and Nestor Cortes under contract for next season and young starters like Will Warren and Clayton Beeter waiting in the wings. Adding starting pitching would likely be low on their list of offseason priorities. The one caveat here is if they see a path to trading a young starter (or two) like Schmidt to fortify their lineup and then signing another veteran arm to reinforce their rotation. They did something similar last season, signing Stroman in free agency after including Michael King and three young starters in the move to acquire Soto.

You can never have too much pitching, especially in the form of an experienced, playoff-tested starter. Sean Manaea is likely to command a sizable, multi-year contract. Whether or not the Yankees engage him during that process will likely depend on how the rest of their free agency plays out.