The Mets are bringing Adam Ottavino back, after all — the two sides agreeing to a one-year, $4.5 million deal, as first reported by Joel Sherman of the New York Post on Saturday.
Ottavino, who was with the Mets in 2022 and 2023, initially declined a $6.75 million player option in his contract to stay with the team in 2024, opting to test the free-agency waters.
He explained his initial decision as to why he chose to pursue that route on the Foul Territory podcast last week
“To be clear, I wanted to stick with the Mets. It’s the best situation for me, being a New York guy. I loved my time with the Mets. It’s just more of a function of, at the moment I had to make the decision, there was just so much uncertainty with the team. They hadn’t hired a manager yet. There was no coaching staff. They hadn’t gotten any free agents yet. We’d kind of scuffled down the stretch. There was this narrative that the team wasn’t going to try to compete this year. Obviously, I’m not getting any younger. I tried to talk to [president of baseball operations] David Stearns and get a little certainty on my end. Obviously, he’s going to play things close to the vest. That’s the way front offices operate, and I totally understand that. But from my perspective, I just didn’t feel 100% certain of what direction the team was going to look like, come spring training. I also had a lot of deferred money in my contract for this year. In that moment, it made sense for me to test the waters. I’d still like to be back there, but my mind is open to lots of different outcomes this time around. I feel like I’m on a year-to-year basis at this point with my age. I just don’t want to sell myself short; I’ve still never won, and I would like the opportunity to do that.”
The 38-year-old regressed in 2023 amid a Mets bullpen that never recovered from losing Edwin Diaz at the World Baseball Classic that March. After going 6-3 with a 2.06 ERA in 2022, Ottavino went 1-7 with a 3.21 ERA across 66 appearances while finishing the campaign as the team’s closer following the trade of David Robertson.
The Mets had been in on free-agent reliever Hector Neris as a potential bridge option to Diaz, now healthy, in 2024. Neris, however, opted to sign on with the Chicago Cubs earlier on Saturday.
Back in New York, Ottavino should have an opportunity to be the eighth-inning guy in the Mets’ bullpen — which still appears to be on uncertain footing. The only other signing of note this offseason had been Jorge Lopez, who followed up an All-Star 2022 with a disastrous 5.95 ERA with three teams in 2023.
For more on the Mets and Adam Ottavino, visit AMNY.com
