Luis Severino is scheduled to start for the Athletics on Sunday when the Mets and A’s face off in Sacramento, and as the veteran righty gets set to face his old team, Severino opened up about New York’s limited pursuit of a reunion last winter when Severino was a free agent. Severino told SNY and other media members that he had interest in re-signing with the Mets last winter, and said he “told my agent that I’d stay for two years and $40MM.”
This is notably less than the three years and $67MM than Severino received from the Athletics, but the righty was open to the lesser payday. “I knew it was going to be less money, but I just liked the environment there,” Severino said. “The trainers were unbelievable, everything there, it was good. So I was trying to sacrifice more money by staying in a place that I know…I can get better. But by the end, like I said, I was not in their plans.”
From the Mets’ perspective, the club had some level of interest, though apparently only at an even lesser price. Severino said he heard from his agent that the Mets’ “only offer they were going to give me was the same deal that they gave [Frankie] Montas. So I think for me that was not fair.”
New York signed Montas to a two-year, $34MM deal that allows Montas the ability to opt out of the contract following the season. (Severino’s deal with the A’s also has an opt-out clause following the 2026 season.) The $17MM average annual value of that contract is also well below the $22.333MM AAV Severino is getting from the Athletics, and also less than the Mets’ one-year, $21.05MM qualifying offer that Severino turned down last fall.
Even if Severino was willing to drop to a $20MM AAV with his proposed two-year, $40MM contract, a further haircut down to $17MM was a bridge too far for the 31-year-old, especially given the interest he was garnering from other teams. The Cubs and Blue Jays were publicly linked to Severino’s market before he surprised many by joining the low-payroll A’s, whose uncharacteristic spending spree this winter was more than a little related to the team’s desire to post a minimum luxury tax number related to its revenue-sharing recipient status.
Apart from the unique circumstances of the Mets’ record-setting splurge to add Juan Soto, president of baseball operations David Stearns was otherwise relatively measured in his offseason transactions, as evidenced by the lengthy staring contest of a negotiation with Pete Alonso before the slugger returned to the fold. It could be that Stearns simply didn’t value Severino beyond a particular price point, or that the Mets prioritized Alonso and Sean Manaea (who both also received qualifying offers) moreso than Severino.
The QO perhaps factored into the Mets’ decision process in another fashion, as the Mets ended up down one draft pick overall for the winter despite having three players rejecting QOs. The compensatory pick the Mets received for Severino ended up being one of the two picks the Mets had to surrender as compensation for signing Soto. Of course, the club didn’t get any compensation for re-signing their own free agents — Alonso re-upped for two years and $54MM (with an opt-out after this season), and Manaea for a three-year, $75MM deal that contains $23.75MM in deferred money, dropping the current value in terms of luxury tax numbers to roughly $22MM per season.
Severino signed a one-year, $13MM deal with New York in the 2023-24 offseason, which he viewed as a bounce-back contract after several injury-plagued years with the Yankees. The plan worked out well, as Severino had a solid 3.91 ERA over 182 innings with the Mets that paid off in the form of his three-year commitment from the Athletics. It proved to be a win from the Mets’ perspective as well, as Severino provided steady rotation work for a team that made the NLCS, and New York even get an extra draft pick back for its investment.
Time will tell if the A’s made a wise move in locking up Severino, or if the Mets made a good call in letting him walk. In the short term, however, some second-guessing is inevitable since both Manaea and Montas are hurt. Manaea will be out until late May at the earliest after suffering an oblique strain and then a setback in his rehab, while Montas also figures to be out until roughly mid-May after a lat strain cost him all of Spring Training. Severino has a modest 4.74 ERA over his three starts in an Athletics uniform, but he is at least healthy and on the mound, whereas the Mets have already had their rotation depth stretched in the early going.
