Mets Sign Bader and Manaea

Posted by Patrick Gorman 1/14/2024

This past week The Mets made signings to improve their major league with Gold Glove Outfielder Harrison Bader and Left-Hander Sean Manaea. These two moves pretty much show that the offseason was Yamamoto or bust and with Yoshi going to the Dodgers The Mets decide to improve the roster with short-term deals while not hurting the "2025 and beyond" mantra. I will be discussing my initial reaction to both signings and what will be next for this slow moving off-season.

Harrison Bader

When I initially saw the Jeff Passan tweet that The Mets signed Bader I was excited that we will have a caliber of Harrison Bader who is an elite center fielder as our 4th outfielder. When I saw that they were paying him $10.5 million surprised me because everyone knows New York ain't paying him that much to come off the bench for late inning substitutions and to swipe bags in close games. With David Stearns stating that Bader will be playing center field regularly makes you think that they will move longtime Met Brandon Nimmo to left field. This move makes The Mets better in defense especially with Stearns emphasis on improving run-prevention which has not been The Mets strength in what seems like forever. Harrison Bader's defensive metrics in Centerfield are elite while having a 9 OAA (Outs Above Average) and having a 6.9 DWAR in the 2023 season. The only real knock on Bader is his availability. Harrison Bader has had issues staying on the field ever since he made his MLB debut 7 years ago. Since Bader has been in the MLB he has only had two seasons where he played over 120 games. If Bader can stay on the field and put up around league average numbers offensively and do what he usually does on the defensive side, then he will be a key ingredient to a competitive season.

Sean Manaea

The Sean Manaea signing really surprised me because I genuinely thought that the pivot from Yamamoto would be Lucas Giolito. Sean Manaea in my opinion is much more intriguing than Luis Severino. Manaea was once a highly touted pitching prospect for the Oakland As and never really has found solid footing in the MLB. He has shown flashes throughout his career on what he could be like in 2018 where he put up solid numbers posting a 3.59 ERA while tossing 160 innings and in 2021 where he posted a 3.91 ERA while tossing 158 innings.

The years in between where cases of Manaea struggling to stay healthy and struggling to find consistency as a starter. The intriguing part about Manaea has been his recent work with the known training facility Driveline Baseball. In one off-season training with Driveline Manaea saw his velocity in his fastball go from 91.2 mph to topping out at 97.2 mph. While seeing an uptick in his velocity Manaea also added a sweeper to his pitch arsenal. This new pitch was a success for the southpaw as opposing hitters had numbers of a AVG of .140, a SLG of .163, Whiff % of 35.1, and 2,121 RPM. Manaea added this sweeper on May 30th 2023 and since then he had a 3.60 ERA in 85 innings. This can be another great value signing to The Mets and if Manaea can put anything close to those second half numbers with The Giants.

What's Next?

It is no kept secret that The Mets need relievers to compliment Edwin Diaz and they desperately need a legit DH to protect Pete Alonso especially if they want to compete in 2024. I will go more in depth on this in the next blog.