One of the things at the top of the list for the Mets this offseason will be rebuilding a rotation that could be losing three core members from the 2024 group.
Free agents Sean Manaea and Luis Severino both rejected the Mets’ one-year, qualifying offers in order to hit the open market, and Jose Quintana is also a free agent.
As things currently stand, the Mets’ rotation ahead of 2025 consists of Kodai Senga (who should be healthy after a 2024 that was lost to multiple injuries) and David Peterson, with depth options that include Paul Blackburn (assuming he’s offered arbitration), Jose Butto, and Tylor Megill.
There are two ace-level, inning-eating starting pitchers on the free agent market — Corbin Burnes and Max Fried.
Blake Snell is a free agent, too, and could possibly cost about half what Burnes and Fried wind up getting.
Also available is 23-year-old Japanese ace Roki Sasaki, whose age and years of service in Japan will limit him to a minor league deal, with interested teams able to offer their international bonus pool money to him. Pretty much every team will be after him.
With the Mets expected to be very active in free agency this winter, here are the top five free agent starting pitchers — external and internal — who should be on their list…
5. Shane Bieber
Bieber had Tommy John surgery on April 12, which means this would be a play for the second half of the 2025 season — and potentially a signing that wouldn’t pay off until the start of the 2026 campaign. But it’s worth exploring.
The right-hander, who is entering his age-30 season, figures to sign a two-year deal similar to the one the injured Brandon Woodruff signed with the Brewers before last season — when he inked a two-year contract for $17.5 million that included a mutual option for a third season.
Bieber has been one of the best pitchers in baseball since 2019, with a 3.02 ERA and 1.08 WHIP in 728.1 innings over 115 starts while walking a minuscule 2.0 per nine and striking out 10.4 per nine.
His strikeout rate dipped in 2022 and 2023, but the average velocity of his four-seamer (92 mph in 2024) isn’t far off from what it was during his first full season in 2019 (93.1 mph). Even if his fastball velo is a bit down, Bieber’s strong five-pitch mix should help offset it — he also features a slider, changeup, knuckle curve, and cutter.
Inking Bieber would be a low-risk, high-reward move for a team that is well-positioned to pull the trigger on it.
4. Sean Manaea
Of all of the Mets’ internal starting pitching free agents, Manaea should be at the top of their list.
While it’s hard to bank on Manaea being able to maintain the level of production he had after dropping his arm angle during the middle of the 2024 season, it’s also quite possible he’s simply unlocked something. And even if he doesn’t maintain ace-level production, he could be a steal if he comes close.
After changing his delivery in late July, Manaea had a 3.09 ERA in 12 starts to close the regular season, holding opposing hitters to a .170/.230/.307 triple slash while allowing just 46 hits in 75.2 innings.
Manaea was also largely dominant during his first three postseason starts, allowing just five earned runs in 17 innings across the Wild Card Series, NLDS, and Game 2 of the NLCS. And in his first NLCS start against the Dodgers in Los Angeles, he made Shohei Ohtani look downright silly.
If the years don’t get too crazy, the Mets should be able to make something work here — with Manaea getting a nice annual raise from the $14.5 million he made in 2024. Perhaps a three-or four-year deal worth a bit more than $20 million annually could get it done.
3. Walker Buehler
Buehler is the only healthy free agent who has been an ace over a full season before, could be an ace again, but who almost certainly won’t require a long-term deal. it seems likely that he’ll ink a one- or two-year deal (potentially with the second year being a player option) in order to build his value back up following Tommy John surgery and a difficult regular season in 2024.
Another plus regarding Buehler is that the Dodgers did not extend a qualifying offer to him, which means any team that signs him will not lose a draft pick for doing so.
When Buehler is right, he is a No. 1 starter. From 2018 to 2021 he had a 2.82 ERA (3.16 FIP) and 0.98 WHIP while striking out 620 batters in 564.0 innings — a strikeout rate a tick under 10.0 per nine. He’s also postseason-proven, having excelled for the Dodgers in the NLCS and World Series this past season — locking down their championship while closing out the Yankees in Game 5.
And while Buehler struggled in the regular season in 2024 during what was his first year back after having Tommy John surgery in August of 2022 (his second TJS, after also having the procedure in 2015), there are reasons to believe he’ll be able to return to form in 2025 as he enters his age-30 season.
2. Blake Snell
For the majority of his career, including the last two seasons, Snell has had some of the best stuff in baseball — and his advanced stats via Baseball Savant show that he knows how to deploy that stuff. Featuring a four-pitch mix — a curve, changeup and slider to go along with the fastball — Snell keeps hitters off-balance, resulting in tons of swings and misses and very few hits allowed.
Snell led the league in hits per nine innings (5.8) during his Cy Young season for the Padres in 2023, and was even better in that regard for the Giants in 2024, when he gave up just 5.6 hits per nine.
That Snell doesn’t pitch deep into games often isn’t as big of an issue as it would’ve been 10 or 20 years ago — with most modern pitchers no longer the kind of innings-eating arms that used to dominate the sport. Even his relatively high walk rate isn’t much of an issue. That’s because he pretty much offsets them by getting tons of swings and misses and allowing so few hits.
That means the main question here is health. But it can be argued that gambling on Snell for three or four years is a better bet than handing a seven-year deal to Burnes or a six-year deal to Fried. Not because Steve Cohen and the Mets can’t easily give a massive deal to Burnes or Fried, but because long-term deals for pitchers over 30 rarely work out.
1. Roki Sasaki
Sasaki is quite simply one of the most talented pitchers to ever hit the free agent market. He has a fastball that sits in the high-90s and touches 102 mph, an otherworldly splitter, and impeccable command.
And since he’s just 23 years old has accumulated only four years of service time in Japan, Sasaki won’t be able to sign anything but a minor league deal — with his contract counting toward his signing team’s international bonus pool allotment.
The above levels the playing field. And the rumors surrounding Sasaki are all over the place. Some have him all but certain to go to the Dodgers. Others have him preferring a small market. Some others say he wants to be the biggest star wherever he goes. So … no one really knows anything it seems.
Recently, Sasaki’s agent bristled at the notion that him going to the Dodgers was some kind of done deal — unsurprising, since having something prearranged would violate the rules. But it really does seem like this could be anyone’s game. So why not the Mets?
Whoever signs Sasaki will be getting a pitcher who needs to prove he can handle a big workload (he’s never thrown more than 129.1 innings), but who has a legitimate chance to be the best pitcher in baseball.
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