Sean Manaea returns to Mets on three-year deal

The Mets have agreed to a three-year, $75M contract with left-hander Sean Manaea, according to a report from Jeff Passan of ESPN. Jon Heyman of the New York Post notes that the deal is pending a physical.

Manaea, 33 in February, is now poised to sign with the Mets for the second consecutive offseason. In the first week of January earlier this year, the southpaw landed with New York on a two-year deal that guaranteed him $28M and included an opt-out following the 2024 campaign. It was the second winter in a row that saw Manaea sign a two-year deal with an opt-out after he signed with the Giants on a $25M guarantee during the 2022-23 offseason.

That first contract in San Francisco was inked on the heels of a brutal 2022 season in San Diego that saw Manaea struggle to a 4.96 ERA (76 ERA+) with a 4.53 FIP in 158 innings of work. His time with the Giants went better than that; while his 4.44 ERA (94 ERA+) was still below average, he nonetheless entered the offseason boasting much stronger peripherals (3.91 FIP, 3.83 SIERA) and a solid run of starts down the stretch that September where he posted a 2.25 ERA and 3.21 FIP.

The Mets believed that portended better days in Manaea’s future, and it certainly did. The lefty emerged as a quality mid-rotation option for New York in 2024 as he posted a 3.47 ERA (114 ERA+) with a 3.83 FIP in a career-high 181 2/3 innings of work across 32 starts. With a career year in the books ahead of his third consecutive trip to free agency, it seemed as though Manaea was looking for longer-term security. The Mets opted to tag the lefty with the qualifying offer at the outset of the winter. Still, it was hardly a surprise when Manaea rejected that one-year, $21.05M offer and entered the open market anyway. After all, the lefty came into the winter ranked by MLBTR as the No. 10 free agent available on our annual Top 50 MLB Free Agents list and the No. 5 starter behind only Corbin Burnes, Blake Snell, Max Fried and Jack Flaherty.

Early in the offseason, the QO encumbered Manaea led several clubs that likely would’ve had an interest in a mid-rotation veteran like him to turn towards alternative options. The Angels, Dodgers and Cubs turned in the early days of the offseason to unencumbered free agents like Yusei Kikuchi, Snell and Matthew Boyd rather than delve into the markets of qualified free agents like Manaea, Nick Pivetta, or Luis Severino.

However, that’s not a consideration for the Mets, as reuniting with Manaea only costs the hypothetical draft pick they would’ve received had he signed elsewhere. That’s allowed Manaea to land a healthy guarantee despite a relatively small list of teams connected to him this winter: his three-year, $75M deal exceeds the three-year, $60M guarantee MLBTR predicted for him at the outset of the offseason, but that’s hardly a surprise given that virtually every starting pitcher’s contract has exceeded expectations.

For New York, a reunion with Manaea is a likely capstone on the club’s efforts to reconstruct its starting rotation after he, Severino and Jose Quintana hit the open market last month. The club added Frankie Montas and Clay Holmes to their rotation mix earlier this winter. That duo offers little stability, given Montas’s struggles in 2025 and that Holmes last started a game in the majors in 2018. Manaea provides that much-needed stability while slotting towards the front of a rotation, including talented right-hander Kodai Senga and young southpaw David Peterson.

With depth options like Paul Blackburn, Tylor Megill and Griffin Canning all in the wings to help cover for potential injuries, it would hardly be a surprise if Manaea’s return wrapped up the team’s rotation additions for the winter. That doesn’t mean the club is done entirely, however. Even with a hefty 2025 payroll that RosterResource estimates will land just shy of $280M as things stand, that still leaves $56M of room to work with before the Mets match their 2024 figure. That should leave plenty of room for the Mets to sign a corner infield bat to pair with Mark Vientos, whether that ends up being a reunion with Pete Alonso or an alternative option such as Alex Bregman and perhaps bolster other areas of the roster such as the bullpen or the bench.