Blade Tidwell
The New York Mets gambled last season offering Luis Severino a one year $13 million contract. The deal could not have gone better for either side.
Severino made 31 starts for the Mets pitching 182 innings. He had a 101 ERA+ and a 4.21 FIP. He wasn’t the All-Star caliber pitcher he was with the New York Yankees before all the injuries, but he proved he could be durable enough to last a full season.
Severino stopped tipping his pitches. He occasionally flashed brilliance. His first two starts of the postseason were very good. The work with Driveline and Jeremy Hefner paid off, and Severino was entering free agency poised to truly cash in.
The Mets opted to gamble again and extended Severino a qualifying offer, which is $21.05 million. If he accepts, that’s a nice pay raise for Severino albeit with some risk.
Last offseason, with his injuries and top pitching, Severino needed a one year deal to rebuild his value. In 2024, he accomplished that and appeared in line for a multi-year deal.
That was at least until he was given a qualifying offer. With that, there are going to be teams who will not pursue Severino. Severino was good in 2024 but probably not good enough to justify losing a draft pick and/or international bonus pool money.
For Severino, that puts him in a bad spot. At 31, does he want to try to find a multi year deal in an already limited market? Would such a deal be worth passing on $21.05 million? Certainly, his AAV would look more like his 2024 salary than the QO.
For the Mets, they need starters, and Severino as a mid rotation guy would be perfect. This buys time for Christian Scott to return from Tommy John. It also buys time for prospects like Blade Tidwell and Brandon Sproat.
Mostly, it gets a key part of their rotation locked in as the Mets look to take the next step in 2025. Doing that while not over leveraging into the future is the best case scenario.
That’s Severino accepting the QO. It’s the best case scenario. It strengthens the 2025 rotation while mitigating the risk he doesn’t have any durability after pitching 100 more innings in a year.
Severino returning on a QO is a best case scenario. It would be a great start to the offseason. It’s the first step towards the Mets winning the 2025 World Series.
Good on the New York Mets players for making the decision hard for the front office. What once looked like a team that would be sellers is now a team who is in Wild Card position.
Certainly, the players don’t want to waste this opportunity. Francisco Lindor and Brandon Nimmo have already publicly put pressure on the front office to be buyers.
However, this is David Stearns at the helm, and he’s cut different. He looks to sustainable winners, not one-and-done teams. Remember, this is the same person who traded Josh Hader when the Milwaukee Brewers were in first place.
Looking at the Mets, they’re on the precipice of building that sustainable winner. They have starting pitching prospects less than three years away. They have position player talent closer than that.
The question for this organization is do they sacrifice the future for this year. Of course, it’s a balancing act. Certainly, the Mets can be on the alert for more Phil Maton type deals. However, the real difference making players come at a real cost.
There’s an argument for an alternative path. That path has been forged already by José Buttó.
For his part, Buttó had struggled in his early Major League starts. He was far better this year, and eventually, partially out of necessity, he was moved to the Major League bullpen.
As a reliever, he is 3-0 with one save and a 0.84 ERA. With him and Maton, the Mets have two reliable arms in front of Edwin Díaz. Obviously, a team with a 4.07 FIP, the tenth worst in the majors, needs more help.
If the Mets aren’t inclined to trade off top prospects to do that, maybe they should be using those top prospects in 2024.
Again, Buttó’s move there has paid dividends. There’s a chance Tylor Megill can help there. Looking at David Peterson, his experience out of the pen last year appears to be helping him as a starter this year.
It’s something we have seen work against the Mets in the past. No one needs to be reminded of Adam Wainwright striking out Carlos Beltran to end the 2006 NLCS.
Keep in mind, Wainwright was struggling in Triple-A with the Cardinals. He had a 4.64 Triple-A ERA. He proved to be a better Major Leaguer.
At the moment, the Mets have a trio of struggling starting pitching prospects in Triple-A: Dom Hamel, Blade Tidwell, and Mike Vasil. Looking forward, Hamel and Vasil will need to be added to the 40 man roster before the 2024 Rule 5 Draft this offseason.
Rather than trade these players (or others), why not give them a look in the bullpen. Let’s see Hamel’s high spin rates fool batters. Tidwell’s fastball/slider combination appears ready for a MLB bullpen now. Let’s get Vasil away from the ABS system.
Let’s see what these young arms can do now. We’ve seen teams do this all the time to help them win. For that matter, Stearns did that in Milwaukee with Corbin Burnes, Freddy Peralta, and Brandon Woodruff.
Stearns knows how to execute this plan. He knows how to take starting pitching prospects and move them to the bullpen with an eye towards eventually using them as Major League starters here.
The plan makes sense for the Mets in the short term. It could payoff in the long term. Perhaps, this is the way to improve the Mets bullpen now while working to develop their top prospects.