Luis Severino is getting one other lease on life in Main League Baseball.
The one-time ace of the New York Yankees has reached an settlement to signal with their crosstown rivals, the New York Mets, for the 2024 MLB season. Severino‘s one-year deal quantities to a “show it” contract with a Mets staff that’s taking a decidedly-different method to team-building after boasting baseball’s highest payroll in 2023.
Severino hoping to bounce again
5 years in the past, Severino was among the many prime right-handed pitchers within the sport. He made consecutive All-Star groups in 2017 and 2018 — ending third in AL Cy Younger Award voting within the former season and profitable 19 video games within the latter. Severino racked up a mixed 450 strikeouts in these two seasons, rising as New York‘s #1 starter — and at 25 years outdated, it appeared a matter of time earlier than he gained a Cy Younger or pitched the Yankees to a pennant.
However that is not the way it shook out.
Severino has battled accidents since his 19-win season. Now 29, he is made solely 40 mixed begins for the reason that 2019 season started. Severino underwent Tommy John surgical procedure throughout the truncated pandemic season of 2020 and spent almost two calendar years on the injured checklist. In 2023, Severino struggled mightily to idiot hitters and posted a career-worst 6.65 ERA.
Stephen A. Smith’s Yankee Stadium first pitch went about as anticipated
Mets rebuilding their rotation
The free-agent pickup of Severino alerts how the Mets will go about constructing its pitching workers for 2024. Gone are the times of $40 million per yr commitments to stars like Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander — the Mets might be bargain-hunting in hopes of hanging gold.
The Mets’ 2024 rotation can have right-hander Kodai Senga on the prime. The 31-year-old obtained NL Cy Younger votes and was named an All-Star throughout a powerful rookie season in MLB, and the Japanese might be relied upon because the workers ace. Proper-hander Jose Quintana additionally has a spot someplace within the rotation, whereas Severino may line up as a fourth starter.
In any other case, New York will fill out the rotation with youthful pitchers or veteran pickups — that’s, if proprietor Steve Cohen would not change tack and provide a boatload of money to signal one other Japanese ace, Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
