Thoughts on Luis Severino, Harrison Bader and Sean Manaea

On Thursday, I gave my overall take on the Mets’ offseason so far. In the interim was this email conversation with ChrisF about that very subject. We started off with this question: So, what grade would you give the Mets this offseason and why?

Chris: I’m giving the present state of the off season as B-. I believe that David Stearns is executing Steve Cohen’s plan, even if it’s not to the liking of most fans, who thought every year would be an FA extravaganza. Ya know, am I excited about any of the signings? Perhaps a little, but not overwhelmed. I don’t have the belief in Brett Baty or Mark Vientos as a 3B duo (or as the main person at the hot corner) or in a Vientos/DJ Stewart DH combo. In Stearns’ interview, he made it clear that the recently promoted and those likely to be promoted will get real playing time in ‘24. The fact is this is an exploratory year. So, I really don’t care much about the incoming the FAs. I think I would have added Justin Turner for help at 3B, including teaching the kids, and part time DH. So, I’m grading the overall moves on a curve.

Brian: My grade for the offseason is C-/D+ depending on my mood that moment. More so than any signing, the best thing in my mind is Stearns saying that young players need a chance. That’s a refreshing change from what we’ve witnessed in Queens for over a decade. Baty can’t complain about the chance he got last year. But I’m looking forward to Vientos getting a similar-sized chance in 2024. And I want Jose Butto to get that chance, too.

Let’s talk about some of the individual moves, beginning with the Luis Severino signing. We heard right away that Severino was a target, so it’s not a surprise that he ended up with the Mets. From what we can see statistically, there’s almost nothing to recommend signing Severino. But we hear talk about how he might have been tipping pitches and how tweaks here and there could make a world of difference. As a fan, it sounds great. I’m just not sure how much faith I can put in mechanical tweaks fixing everything.

But my real problem is the contract, rather than the player. There was so much emphasis on a short-term deal that it puts all of the risk on the team and all of the reward on the player. If Severino is as bad as he was last year, he gets one nice payday before going out to pasture. And if he’s good, he hightails it out of here for a lucrative deal elsewhere. My belief is that this deal should have come with a team option. What’s your take on the Severino signing?

Chris: My first reaction with Severino was “yuk.” My second thought was “depth starter piece” until I saw the contract, which is not particularly likable. I sort of live in the camp of there’s no bad one-year deal, and that, returning to a past comment on an article a couple weeks back, starters will be making more money than they are worth. Plain and simple, the trend is to pitch less and make more: the return on investment is going down considerably (I have not run the numbers on how much, however). I don’t think that Stearns has any real intent to sign him next season, so this is a genuine stop-gap measure. I also can’t help but wonder if it was a smoke signal that might help gravitationally attract Yamamoto; not quite Ohtani to be sure. To me this is a disposable, but “must have,” signing. I’m not crazy about the player and utterly indifferent about the contract.

Interesting you mention mechanics changes related to Severino. Do you mean actual delivery or set up changes (where on rubber he starts, arm angle, pitch grips etc.) or the pitch tipping issue he seemed to have suffer from last year? If it’s the former, I agree – I don’t see that as making a deal. However, I have a lot of confidence they can address the tipping issue to immediate positive effect. Unfortunately, neither will keep him healthy.

Staying with pitching, I guess it’s hard to avoid Stearns’ “long-term” signing with Sean Manaea, and his two-year deal. Even with his development of a “sweeper,” which I think will be much less effective than Senga’s “ghost fork” (what happened pitches in the past few years??), I have a hard time seeing Manaea eclipse his basic metrics of a 4-4.5 ERA, 100 ERA+, and a 1.2-1.4 WHIP. What do you like and not so much like about his acquisition?

Brian: If memory serves, they were talking more about set-up changes to fix the tipping with Severino.

I’m a little more bullish on Manaea than you are. While recognizing that the bulk of these innings came as a reliever, Manaea’s 3.44 ERA/3.15 FIP in his final 91.2 IP is way more encouraging than what Severino did last year. Plus, there was essentially no drop-off when he returned to the rotation, as Manaea posted a 2.25 ERA/3.21 FIP in his four September starts. And he’s been pretty durable since the beginning of 2020.

That being said, it’s still a contract where all of the risk lies with the Mets. Maybe it’s naïve of me to believe the Mets should have been able to get more team-friendly deals coming off a rotten season. But the best-case scenario is good pitching in 2024 and then watch him leave. Maybe he can pitch well enough to merit a QO and some draft-pick compensation.

It’s clear that the main goal was flexibility with one-year deals. But as the organization, don’t you want to keep guys beyond one year if they’re good? If you believe that Manaea is a quality SP, wouldn’t a 2/$33 deal with no opt out have been preferable? That seems reasonable after the 2/$37 deal that Marcus Stroman signed.

Finally, what’s your view on the Harrison Bader signing? Another flexibility deal for me. It’s nice that he can hit LHP and provides good defense. But the injury questions and his inability to hit RHP make me wonder why he’s worth any more than the arbitration estimate of $1.6 million for Tim Locastro.

Chris: If you liked that one-year, player-controlled, overpaid contract for that ever-healthy ex Bronx-ite, then you are *really* gonna love that two-year, player-controlled, no-hope contract for Mr. Lefty with the Magnificent Flow. It looks like a total bungle to me, but I suppose a two-year deal is so limited financially that maybe the team doesn’t care about actually having a say in what happens. I think that is really part of my indifference about the ’24 class of free agents. I sure hope Manaea pans out more along your path. I hope to be pleasantly surprised.

I digress, so on to Bader. Not really knowing anything about Stearns’ overarching baseball philosophy until recently, I read the other day that he is a pitching and defense centric thinker that values run prevention as well as run production. Count me in for that. So that realization frames the Bader acquisition better than my initial reaction of “seriously?”

Hard to argue this signing as another example of stuffing the turkey with nameless, faceless, middling free agents that have potential high upside (and potentially higher floors), but which is tempered by injury or down-turn seasons that cast shadows. It will be nice to have a Juan Lagares type patrolling Citi Field’s vast center field; the flip side is it won’t be that nice to have Lagares’ balsa-wood bat as well. I suppose if he can come up with another Gold Glove season that would justify the signing, or at least we will be told that. And really, this seems exactly like the kind of move you make to take the path that is neither wholesale rebuild nor free-agent palooza.

Overall, I am ok with these selections because I see the team moving to a real plan to build a team with seniority balance. If Stearns can get the team to a place where enough young, controlled, quality players occupy most positions, then fill the remainder with a number of free agents at the peaks of their careers it will all be worth it.