The Mets have declined their end of a mutual option with reliever Mychal Givens, general manager Billy Eppler informed reporters (including Will Sammon of the Athletic). He’ll collect a $1.25MM buyout and head back to the open market.
New York added Givens from the Cubs at the trade deadline. Chicago had inked him to a $5MM guarantee over the offseason, and the righty provided them with a 2.66 ERA through 40 2/3 innings. New York sent minor league pitcher Saúl González to the North Siders to add him for the stretch run, but Givens had a somewhat disappointing couple months in Queens.
The 32-year-old posted a 4.79 ERA over 20 2/3 innings for skipper Buck Showalter. He had a roughly average 22.7% strikeout rate and a 45% ground-ball percentage, but he was plagued by an elevated .368 batting average on balls in play. Givens cut his walks to just 6.8% with the Mets, but he’d walked 11% of opposing hitters as a Cub.
The longtime Oriole heads back to the open market. He’s appeared with five different teams over the last three years, generally missing bats in the middle innings but battling inconsistent control. Givens has posted an ERA between 3.00 and 4.00 in each of the last three seasons, and he’s likely to find another one-year deal in free agency this winter.
It is a mutual option so he may pick it up.
??? Both player and team have to pick it up to be valid. There is no option for him anymore.
Mets6986: I believe that it’s called either dry humor or sarcasm.
No it wasn’t.
Man, I hope Arizona goes after this guy.
Was thinking he’d end up in ARZ.
He could be one of their best couple relievers. Hope we see the Mantiply of first half of season
Mutual option
The purpose of mutual options continues to elude me.
Spread the lux tax cost over over 2 seasons.
Jed Hoyer on line 1.
What would his salary have been under the option?
$3.5 million
That’s a bit of a headscratcher since they just paid him $1.5M to leave. He started his stay with the Mets poorly but he did get it together down the stretch. With so much uncertainty in the pen, you’d think he’d be worth the other $2M.
To be sure. He has an ERA+ of 132 over the past 3 years. The worst part of his game is giving up HR, but Citi can only help with that. He’s a useful, reasonably durable reliever on the cheap for a team that needs a lot of help in the pen.
Still, it’s Eppler, the only GM ever draft-trolled by the team he was leaving. Didn’t the Angels take pitchers and pitchers only in the draft right after Eppler left?
Seeing Eppler with a $300m payroll on a team that, overwhelmingly, needs pitching is like watching a toddler juggle gas cans.
This was a Given.
Bring him back orioles
Oh no. Hate to lose him. He was so reliable.