Luis Severino stayed healthy, but do the Mets trust what they saw last season enough to extend the relationship for potentially the next four or five years?
The right-hander on Tuesday rejected the club’s qualifying offer worth $21.05 million for next season, crystalizing that any return to Queens for Severino will come on a multiyear deal.
Pete Alonso and Sean Manaea also rejected qualifying offers from the Mets, who will receive draft-pick compensation for each, if any, of the players that sign elsewhere.
Alonso and Manaea were near guarantees from the start to reject the qualifying offer, but there may have been less certainty with the 30-year-old Severino, given the possibility he could have accepted a higher than market value 2025 salary and looked to parlay that into a multiyear deal next offseason.
Even so, it’s likely Severino — who is viewed within the industry as a No. 2 or 3 starter for a playoff-caliber team — will receive at least four years with his next contract and the risk in accepting the qualifying offer would have been an injury-plagued season diminishing his free-agent value next winter.
The top end of this market for starting pitchers includes Corbin Burnes, Blake Snell and Max Fried. The next tier includes Manaea and Severino, who combined to give the Mets a formidable 1-2 punch last season.
Severino, who arrived on a one-year contract worth $13 million, pitched to a 3.91 ERA in 31 starts for the Mets in which he recorded 161 strikeouts in 182 innings. It marked the first time since 2018 with the Yankees that Severino was healthy enough to start at least 30 games.
“I have to give a lot of credit to the Mets, the trainers, strength coach and everybody here helping,” Severino said last month. “I feel that even though I was healthy this year, I can still improve.”
Severino averaged 95.9 mph with his fastball velocity, which ranked in MLB’s 79th percentile, according to Statcast. His numbers were also strong on average exit velocity, barrel percentage and ground ball percentage, among others.
The Mets’ returning starting pitchers for next season include Kodai Senga, David Peterson and Tylor Megill. Another possibility, Paul Blackburn, is rehabbing after undergoing a procedure to repair a cerebrospinal fluid leak — he could miss the start of spring training — and the Mets have to decide whether to tender him a contract.
Team officials can look in a variety of directions to fill vacancies, with familiar faces Severino, Manaea and Jose Quintana among the available arms.
“You can build pitching staffs in very different ways,” president of baseball operations David Stearns said recently at the GM Meetings. “You can do it by adding starting pitching and going for the length at the front end of games. We can structure our bullpen a little differently next year where you have got more multiple-inning options that can eat up innings. But certainly we need to find some innings and part of that is going to be adding to the starting rotation.”
Severino pitched at least six innings in 20 of his 31 starts, improving in the second half of the season on that front.
“I want to compete,” Severino said. “I want to be on a team that wants to win the World Series and gives everything they have got every time they take the field. I have got to take that in mind.”