Right-hander Dylan Covey, who was outrighted off the Mets’ 40-man roster last week, has elected free agency, per his transaction log at MLB.com. The Mets never formally announced his decision, but Covey wasn’t included on the team’s list of the 67 players who’ll participate in major league camp this morning. (Infielder Luis De Los Santos, outrighted at the same time as Covey, was on the list.)
Covey, 33, signed a split big league deal with the Mets back in late October that would’ve paid him $850K in the majors or $350K in the minors, per the Associated Press. Since he has fewer than five years of MLB service, Covey would forfeit any guarantees on that deal (presumably just the minor league split) by rejecting the assignment and going back to the market.
Covey hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2023, when he logged a sharp 3.77 ERA over 43 innings between the Dodgers and Phillies. That year’s 15.7% strikeout rate was way shy of league-average, but Covey’s 8.9% walk rate was close to average and his 54.3% ground-ball rate was very strong. The right-hander had spent the 2021-22 seasons pitching in Taiwan for the Chinese Professional Baseball League’s Rakuten Monkeys, and he returned with a sinker that sat at 95.1 mph — an increase of 3.1 mph over the 92 he average in 2020.
The Phillies saw enough to keep Covey around in arbitration, tendering him a contract in arbitration and signing him to a one-year deal. A shoulder strain wiped out the bulk of his 2024 campaign, however. Covey didn’t pitch in the majors and logged only a combined 20 1/3 innings in the minors. His 2.66 ERA across multiple levels was strong, however, and Covey backed that up with a decent 22.6% strikeout rate and a mammoth 66.5% ground-ball rate (albeit against an ugly 10.7% walk rate).
Covey’s overall body of work in the big leagues isn’t great. He has a career 6.18 ERA in 307 1/3 MLB innings. That said, he pitched well in Taiwan (3.63 ERA in 198 1/3 innings), came back to North America throwing harder and has now had some degree of success in the big leagues and upper minors with a revamped pitch repertoire. He’s throwing far more sinkers and cutters since returning stateside and has scrapped his four-seamer and curveball entirely. Covey seems to rather clearly be a different pitcher in his early 30s than he was when he was getting hit hard with the White Sox and Red Sox in his 20s. He can provide another club with some depth in the rotation and/or in the bullpen as a long man.
A lot of teams will want to sign Dylan C.
Yeah, but he won’t get a $350K minor league guaranteed if he doesn’t make the majors.
I’m thinking he already has a deal in place to turn down that guarantee. It could even be with the Mets in the event he doesn’t have anything set with another club with them allowing him to check for a better opportunity.
How many Dylan C.’s though?
Hello Dylan? Yes..Jed Hoyer here.
Orioles go get him. If you can’t get Dylan Cease, you can at least fetch Covey and add him to Coleman. Who needs Dylan Cease when you have the Dylan C’s
I would imagine that any number of teams would have interest. Hell, if we’re signing Gavin Sheets, we might as well let Ruben Niebla take a look at Dylan Covey.
Is he a Boras client? Getting bad advice giving up a 350k guarantee. Hopefully he knows he’s getting a full majors contract with someone otherwise this makes no sense. He probably would have been up with the Mets at some point anyways inevitable they’d get an injury or something and need a couple extra arms throughout the year.
@D2323 If a team brings him up at all he gets paid the MLB minimum from that point on (well, for that 1/12th of the season and every twelfth thereafter, iirc or unless the MLBPA was altered in that regard).
He was probably something like #12 in Mets SP Depth Chart and #16 out of the bullpen and gambles he can make some club’s OD roster or will get brought up sooner than (760,000 – 350,000) / 760,000 = 0.539 of the way into the season. So if he’s up no later than the ASB, more or less, he’s broken even or done better than that.
Lots of 40 mans are full. Hope he didn’t screw himself.
Roster spots open up again with the 60 day IL starting again.
He doesn’t have to be on a roster until more than halfway through the season just to break even. If he gets say a June 1 callup he’ll make roughly 2/3 of the MLB minimum even if they outright a few days later.
He may have a standing deal with a Korean team that he can go back there if the US doesn’t pan out.
I could see AJ Preller taking a flyer on this guy with MLB roster opt outs during the season. He isn’t going to cost a truck load of cash and Ruben Niebla is about as good as they get as a pitching coach. All it takes is for Preller to hit on one or even two of these low-cost pitchers with previous MLB experience and that could open the door for a trade of another pitcher for a bat, outfielder and some higher-level prospects to help replenish the farm system.
Every year the one thing that every MLB team is always looking for is PITCHING and this year is no different.
Come home to the Brewers, your originally drafted team.
This definitely sounds to me like your typical Brewers free agent pitching signing, a reclamation type project that the Brewers seem to thrive at getting the most out of.
Covey doesn’t have anything to reclaim, though. He’s just a hair better than the guys who never even get a call up.
High ground ball rate lower walk rate improvement in his stuff overseas… this reeks of a Brewer FA pitching pickup
The Red Stockings of Boston say hold my beer