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Blue Jays Acquire Steven Matz

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9:15pm: The teams have announced the deal.

8:35pm: The Blue Jays and Mets are closing in on a swap that would send lefty Steven Matz to Toronto, per Jeff Passan of ESPN.com (via Twitter). Robert Murray of Fansided tweeted that a trade between the clubs was coming; Michael Mayer of Metsmerized had tweeted that a Matz move was in the works.

Three right-handed pitchers will head back to New York in the arrangement: Josh Winckowski, Sean Reid-Foley, and Yennsy Diaz. (Via Murray, on Twitter, and Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet.ca, also via Twitter.)

Matz, 29, is due $5.2MM after agreeing to avoid arbitration. He will qualify for free agency after the 2021 campaign. The Mets obviously determined they could better allocate that salary for other needs. Whether it’ll be part of a big payout to lure Trevor Bauer remains to be seen; there’s still no reason to believe anything is imminent on that front.

While he has at times featured as a high-quality big-league starter, Matz has had his share of difficulties of late. The Long Island native wraps up a six-year run with the Mets having thrown 579 2/3 innings of 4.35 ERA ball.

While Matz made thirty starts apiece in 2018 and 2019, arm issues were a recurring problem. He spent time on the injured list in 2020 and ended the campaign with a brutal 9.68 ERA in just 30 2/3 frames of action.

That unfortunate short-season effort came with a few bright spots. Though Matz surrendered a ton of hard contact, he also managed a career-best 25.4% strikeout percentage while delivering his sinker at an average of 94.5 mph.

Clearly, the Jays believe Matz still possesses the necessary physical tools to deliver a good number of useful innings. He’ll likely have a chance to battle for a rotation spot in camp, though the team could also plan to use him in a swingman or even pure relief capacity.

The Mets will get some reward for deciding to tender Matz a contract. None of the three arms acquired come with high-grade prospect billing, but each will have a chance to contribute in the near term.

Both Reid-Foley and Diaz have debuted in the majors, meaning they also occupy 40-man roster spots (albeit with options remaining). The former threw 71 2/3 innings of 4.40 ERA ball over three seasons with the Jays, carrying a suboptimal 76:48 cumulative K/BB ratio. Diaz has just one appearance to his name, but turned in a solid showing at the Double-A level in 2019.

As for Winckowski, he’s still due for further seasoning. The 22-year-old reached the High-A level in 2019. Over 127 1/3 total frames that year, he turned in a sturdy 2.69 ERA. Winckowski will (again) be eligible for the Rule 5 draft after the 2021 campaign.

Mets Have Made Offer To Trevor Bauer

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JANUARY 27: Martino has a bit more information on the Mets’ offer (Twitter link). The deal would run no more than four years, with Bauer picking up at least one opt-out opportunity. There’s still no indication that the Mets are anything more than one of several suitors at this point.

It’s no surprise that the New York org dangled this sort of relatively unorthodox scenario to Bauer. He’s obviously willing to entertain all sorts of contractual approaches and different teams may prefer any number of different structures. It’ll ultimately be interesting to learn (to the extent it ends up being publicly reported) just how many variations Bauer will ultimately have to choose from.

JANUARY 26: The Mets’ interest in Trevor Bauer has reached the point that they’ve made a formal offer to the right-hander, reports SNY’s Andy Martino (via Twitter). However, despite a report from USA Today’s Bob Nightengale indicating that the Mets have put forth a record-setting annual value in their offer, each of Martino, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman and MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand report that the Mets do not have an offer that strong on the table.

Nightengale has since walked back the AAV portion of his report but further tweeted that a Mets source “confirmed” they’ve made a formal offer to Bauer (obviously, at a non-record-setting rate). Mike Puma of the New York Post tweets that the offer was formally put on the table “weeks ago,” so it obviously has not been strong enough to push Bauer toward a deal. That said, the first definitive indication of an offer being made to Bauer is of some note.

The current AAV record is held by Gerrit Cole, whose nine-year contract with the Yankees pays him an average of $36MM per year. There’s been plenty of speculation on the possibility of Bauer eclipsing that mark but on a shorter-term arrangement. MLBTR’s own Tim Dierkes took a look at whether Bauer and agent Rachel Luba would have a legitimate case for seeking such a deal earlier this winter, concluding that a record AAV offer would likely need to come in at four or fewer years in total length. That topic has proven quite polarizing, with many onlookers pointing to Cole’s superior track record and consistency. However, as Tim explored, teams are typically willing to pay substantial premiums in terms of AAV if it limits the overall length of a contract.

Bauer hasn’t closed the door on any contract structure since his free agency began. As recently as 2019, the right-hander insisted he’d only sign one-year contracts upon reaching the market, playing out his career in mercenary-esque, year-to-year fashion. He’s softened that stance this winter, as both he and Luba have voiced an openness to longer-term deals. The potential for opt-out provisions to be baked into any multi-year agreement could certainly impact negotiations as well.

Ultimately, there’s no way of knowing whether a short-term deal with a record annual rate would prove enticing enough for Bauer — if any team is even willing to make such an offer in the first place — or whether he’d prefer the security of a longer-term pact at a lower price point. The answer there is quite likely dependent on the team making the offer. Bauer has stressed on his YouTube channel that he’s seeking a “partnership” with a win-now team that will support his desire to grow his brand on social media and have an “honest” conversation about him pitching every fourth day. The Mets, Angels and Blue Jays have all been linked to Bauer in recent weeks, and other pitching-needy teams are surely at least keeping tabs on his market.

Mets To Sign Aaron Loup

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The Mets and left-handed reliever Aaron Loup are in agreement on a deal, pending the completion of a physical, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports (via Twitter). It’s a one-year deal for Loup, Joel Sherman of the New York Post adds. MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo reported earlier this afternoon that the Mets were “zeroing in” on Loup after missing out on Brad Hand, who signed with the division-rival Nationals. Loup is represented by the Beverly Hills Sports Council.

Loup, 33, gives the Mets an established left-handed bullpen option that the roster previous lacked. Waiver claim Stephen Tarpley and former 40th-round pick Daniel Zamora were the only two southpaws on the Mets’ 40-man roster prior to their forthcoming agreement with Loup. Veteran southpaw Jerry Blevins will be in Spring Training as a non-roster invitee as well, though he didn’t pitch at all last season.

Outside of a forearm strain that wiped out a good chunk of his 2019 season in San Diego, Loup has been a largely durable and reasonably effective bullpen piece since breaking into the Majors with the Blue Jays back in 2012. He’s had some ups and downs along the way, but the end result is a 3.38 ERA and 3.24 SIERA with career strikeout and walk rates of 21.9 percent and 7.0 percent. Loup has upped his strikeout numbers over the past few years, however, and in 2020 with the Rays delivered one of his best stretches: a 2.52 ERA and 3.62 SIERA with a 22.9 percent punchout rate and a 4.2 percent walk rate that ranked among the game’s lowest. He also tossed 5 1/3 innings in the playoffs, allowing just two runs with seven strikeouts against two walks.

Loup has been better against lefties throughout his big league career but has held his own against righties and was quite good against them in 2020’s shortened slate of games. He’s held opposing lefties to a career .232/.301/.319 batting line while righties have managed a .264/.333/.428 output.

Loup will join right-hander Trevor May as a new member of the Mets’ setup core, effectively replacing fellow free-agent lefty Justin Wilson in the process. The Mets could perhaps still use another lefty, but with a relief corps featuring May, Loup, Edwin Diaz, Seth Lugo, Dellin Betances, Jeurys Familia, Miguel Castro and Brad Brach, they’re certainly not light on talent. Some of those veterans — Betances and Familia in particular — are in search of rebound efforts, but everyone in that veteran group has enjoyed a good bit of big league success.

Mets Showing Interest In Aaron Loup

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With lefty Brad Hand, reported to be one of the Mets’ top bullpen targets, now off the board on a deal with the division-rival Nationals, the Mets are “zeroing in” on southpaw Aaron Loup, MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo reports (via Twitter). The 33-year-old has a solid, albeit lesser track record to that of Hand but should come at a more affordable price as a result.

Loup spent the 2020 season with the Rays, pitching to a 2.52 ERA and 3.62 SIERA with a 22.9 percent strikeout rate and a 4.2 percent walk rate that ranked among the best in the league. That marked an (obviously) outstanding rebound effort for the lefty, who missed the bulk of the 2019 season with the Padres due to a forearm strain.

Prior to the 2019-20 seasons, Loup had spent the vast majority of his career with the Blue Jays, enjoying a good bit of success but struggling through some of the highs and lows oft associated with the ever-volatile world of relief pitching. Loup was optioned multiple times over the years with the Jays, including several times in a 2016 season that finished with an ERA just north of five. However, in parts of seven seasons with the Jays, Loup finished with a 3.47 ERA, a roughly average 21.8 percent strikeout rate and a solid 7.2 percent walk rate.

As one would expect with any left-handed reliever, Loup has some degree of a platoon split. Over the course of his nine-year MLB career, he’s held lefty batters to a .232/.301/.319 line, while righties have had more success at .264/.333/.424. That said, Loup was quite good against righties and lefties alike in 2020 — albeit in an obviously limited sample of work.

With Justin Wilson hitting the open market after wrapping up a two-year deal in Queens, the Mets lack a lefty reliever with any sort of Major League track record. Waiver claim Stephen Tarpley and longtime farmhand Daniel Zamora are both on the 40-man roster and both have big league experience, though neither found much success in 2020. Former Met Jerry Blevins is also back with the club on a non-roster deal with an invite to Spring Training, so he could factor into the look as well depending on how things shake out in camp.

Mets Name Zack Scott Acting General Manager

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The Mets announced Wednesday that assistant GM Zack Scott has been named acting general manager in the wake of Jared Porter’s abrupt dismissal. The 43-year-old Scott was hired out of the Red Sox organization earlier this winter.

“Zack has plenty of championship experience to draw upon,” president of baseball operations Sandy Alderson said Wednesday in a statement announcing the decision. “He has been an integral part of our decision-making processes since his arrival. The entire baseball operations staff, including myself, will continue to work collaboratively.”

Scott’s recent work with the Red Sox included overseeing both the analytics department and the team’s professional scouting operations. He’d been with the Red Sox since being hired as an intern back in 2004 and steadily rose from that post to vice president of baseball R&D and eventually to assistant general manager.

Alderson said after Porter’s firing that the team wasn’t planning to hire a new general manager this winter, expressing confidence that in-house personnel was able to “move forward effectively” without bringing in an external hire. Scott, it seems, will take over the bulk of Porter’s vacated duties at least on an interim basis. Alderson, by all accounts, still has final say over baseball operations decisions, but Scott’s bump in title will expand his own responsibilities within the hierarchy. It’s always possible, too, that this acting/interim run could vault Scott into candidacy to take on the role on a permanent basis. Clarity on that front isn’t likely to come until this summer at the very earliest — and more likely won’t come until next offseason.

Brodie Van Wagenen Joins Roc Nation Sports

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Former Mets general manager Brodie Van Wagenen has been hired as the chief operating officer at Jay-Z’s Roc Nation Sports, reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan (via Twitter). He’ll have a “broad role” in the agency, which represents Robinson Cano, Yoenis Cespedes, Dominic Smith, Jeremy Jeffress, Shelby Miller, Jazz Chisholm and recently retired CC Sabathia, among others.

Van Wagenen is no stranger to working with Roc Nation. When Jay-Z was first getting his sports representation company off the ground after signing Cano as a client, it was Van Wagenen and CAA Baseball that partnered with Roc Nation to assist running Cano’s free-agent negotiations. The resulting 10-year, $240MM contract between Cano and the Mariners still has three years remaining on the deal — although Cano has since been traded to the Mets and will now miss the 2021 season due to a second PED suspension. The New York Post’s Joel Sherman points out that Van Wagenen and Roc Nation still jointly represented Cespedes at the time of his four-year, $110MM deal with the Mets as well.

As was the case when Dave Stewart signed on to head up the D-backs’ baseball ops department back in 2014, it registered as a surprise to not only see an agent take over a club — but to take over operations of a club where multiple former clients were on the roster. That ostensible conflict of interest clearly wasn’t enough for the league to stand in the way of either man being hired to run the club, however.

Whether this leads to an influx of clients under the Roc Nation banner remains to be seen, though it’s certainly possible. Van Wagenen divested himself from CAA upon being named Mets general manager but still has close connections to dozens of players due to his previous standing as one of the game’s most prominent player representatives. He’ll need to go back through the agent certification process, as Sherman tweets, though it shouldn’t be long before he’s formally certified to return to agent status.

Mets Bring Omar Minaya Back As Ambassador

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Justin Turner has four options on the table that would place him on a contender, with the Dodgers and Blue Jays two of the four, per MLB Insider Jon Heyman (via Twitter). Still, Heyman notes, the Dodgers are confident they will be able to bring Turner back to Chavez Ravine. The hold-up continues to be the length of the deal, as Los Angeles targets a two-year pact, while the 36-year-old seeks four years. Speculatively speaking, looking for other potential landing spots leads naturally to the NL East, where any of the Braves, Nationals, Mets, or Marlins could theoretically find room for Turner. Elsewhere…

  • Omar Minaya will accept an ambassadorship with the Mets to be a public presence for the organization, per Mike Puma of the New York Post (via Twitter). Minaya’s relationship with the Mets dates back to childhood, but his professional career began drawing notice during his time as an assistant general manager from 1998 to 2001. He became the Mets’ general manager from 2004 until 2010, when he was succeeded by Sandy Alderson. After four years with the Padres and some time working for the MLBPA, Minaya returned to serve as one of Alderson’s lieutenants in 2017. He stayed on with the team through the Brodie Van Wagenen era, but he was let go as part of the housecleaning under the new ownership of Steve Cohen. Minaya now returns for his fourth stint with the team. It does not sound as if Minaya will have any impact on baseball operations.

Latest On Mets' Free Agent Pursuits

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The Mets made an offer to free agent reliever Brad Hand that was “right in the ballpark” of the one-year, $10.5MM deal he agreed to with the Nationals, reports Jon Heyman of MLB Network (Twitter link). New York was linked to Hand throughout the offseason, with team president Sandy Alderson acknowledging the club might’ve claimed him last fall had the team’s ownership change been finalized at the time Hand was available on waivers. After missing out on their top lefty bullpen target, the Mets could look into a Justin Wilson reunion, Heyman posits.

  • Elsewhere on the Mets, free agent center fielder Jackie Bradley Jr. is “on their radar,” hears Heyman (Twitter link). That’s hardly an indication New York is actively engaged in the bidding for Bradley, but he does make sense as a potential target for the Mets after they missed out on George Springer. Outfield isn’t necessarily an area of need, but acquiring a true center fielder would push current projected starter Brandon Nimmo into a corner role for which he might be better suited. Bradley is one of the game’s best defenders and coming off a strong 2020 season at the plate.

Mets Had Interest In Garrett Richards

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The Mets made a play for Garrett Richards before the veteran righty signed with the Red Sox, notes MLB Insider Jon Heyman (via Twitter). The Mets have made their rotation a project this offseason. They are seemingly in a good place even without Richards, however. Jacob deGrom, Carlos Carrasco, and Marcus Stroman make for a very strong top three, and hopes remain high that David Peterson will maintain a spot behind them. Noah Syndergaard plans to join that group at some point, and even if Seth Lugo returns to the bullpen, the Mets have no shortage of depth options – foremost of which might be the recently-acquired Joey Lucchesi. Beyond the ex-Padre, Steven Matz, Robert Gsellman, Franklyn Kilome, Corey Oswalt, and Jerad Eickhoff surely have eyes for the rotation. In other news…

Latest On Brad Hand

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TODAY: The market for Hand seems to be shaping up. Hand could decide on his new team as early as this weekend, as MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand (Twitter link) hears from several teams who “have been told that Hand wants to make a decision soon.”

Specifically, the Angels, Dodgers, Mets, and Jays are all at least in the conversation for Hand, per MLB Insider Jon Heyman (via Twitter). Heyman also adds the Nationals as the newest team to emerge as a potential suitor. If the Nationals can find the money for Hand, he could serve as a replacement for free-agent Sean Doolittle. As things stand now, the Nats are without a proven southpaw in the pen, with non-roster invitee Luis Avilan as the only lefty on the 40-man roster besides rookies Sam Clay, Seth Romero, and Ben Braymer.

JANUARY 20: Free-agent reliever Brad Hand has received interest from several teams since Cleveland unexpectedly cut ties with him in late October. The Blue Jays are among the clubs that have been linked to Hand, and Jon Heyman of MLB Network reports that “they’ve had an offer out to” the three-time All-Star.

Hand would be the third noteworthy addition of the offseason for the Blue Jays’ bullpen, which has already landed Kirby Yates (one of Hand’s ex-Padres teammates) and Tyler Chatwood this week. Yates looks like a candidate to close for the Blue Jays in 2021, but that job could go to Hand if the team signs him. Despite losing almost 2 mph on his fastball, Hand posted his latest in a long line of productive seasons in 2020, as the 30-year-old registered a sparkling 2.05 ERA/2.80 SIERA in 22 innings. Hand also converted all 16 of his save opportunities and ranked 13th among relievers in K-BB percentage (29.1).

Toronto and others have new competition for Hand in the Angels, who “have emerged as a possibility” to sign him, Robert Murray of FanSided tweets. He would be another major late-game acquisition for a Halos club that swung a trade with the Reds earlier this offseason for right-hander Raisel Iglesias and picked up southpaw Alex Claudio in free agency. The Angels could still use another lefty for their righty-heavy relief corps, though, and Hand may be their answer.

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