WEST SACRAMENTO — Luis Severino can’t be too positive, however as he remembers, he was about $6 million away from signing with the Mets as soon as once more. As an alternative, he ended up in Sacramento, a good distance away from the intense lights of Broadway the place he pitched for almost a decade.
Sutter Well being Park, a minor league area the A’s are sharing with the Triple-A Sacramento River Cats for no less than the following three seasons, doesn’t evaluate to Yankee Stadium or Citi Discipline, to say the least, however based on Severino, the A’s are making one of the best of it.
The best-hander was awarded a three-year, $67 million contract in December in a considerably beautiful deal. Severino was prepared to return to Flushing and hoped for a reunion with the Mets after a magical run to the NLCS with the Amazin’s in 2024, and was prepared to return on a lesser deal.
“I actually asked for less money to stay there,” Severino stated Friday forward of the Mets collection in opposition to the A’s. “But I was not in their plans.”
What was communicated to Severino by his agent was that the Mets have been prepared to supply him a contract much like the one Frankie Montas signed, two years for $34 million. After going 11-7 with a 3.91 ERA over 31 begins for the Mets final season, Severino felt he was value extra money than that. He felt a two-year, $40 million contract was honest.
“At the beginning, I was shocked,” Severino stated. “But in the end, I knew that it was business.”
The A’s blew that contract out of the water.
On the skin, the optics of the Sacramento state of affairs won’t appear attractive, however Severino noticed a group that checked his bins. The membership wished to area a extra aggressive group for its first yr in Sacramento to draw followers in a brand new metropolis and entice the present followers to present the group one other likelihood.
Final yr, Severino and the Mets shocked baseball by making it to inside two video games of the World Sequence. Within the A’s, he noticed a younger group that with sufficient progress, might shock sooner or later within the close to future. He knew he might play an enormous position.
“Every offseason, I have a meeting with my agent about what we’re looking for, and at the end, this team was the most close to what we were looking for, ” he stated. “A young team who has talent, wants to go out there and play baseball. Last year, nobody thought we were going to the playoffs, and we made it. I feel like there are a lot of teams that have something to show. This is one of those teams.”
The Mets nonetheless really feel like a household to Severino. He hung out catching up with them earlier than Friday’s opening, with touring secretary Edgar Suero even bringing a look ahead to him (it price all of $20). He nonetheless thinks extremely of the group, particularly the coaching employees. For the primary time since 2018, Severino didn’t miss a begin, and he felt the Mets medical employees deserved lots of credit score in retaining him wholesome.
Whereas issues are totally different for Severino in Northern California, totally different isn’t essentially dangerous. His household has landed in a suburb towards the Sierra Nevada foothills, a hillside group that backs as much as Folsom Lake. Severino stated it’s a “beautiful” place that his household has, to this point, loved. Whereas the world doesn’t have a big Dominican inhabitants, Sacramento has lengthy been house to a big Latino group.
Severino will face his outdated group Sunday, hoping to get again on monitor after dropping his final two selections.
“He was really good for us, and I had a really good relationship with him, even when we were both with the Yankees,” stated Mets supervisor Carlos Mendoza. “I’m just proud of the fact that he got a nice contract. The hard work paid off.”
TRAINER’S ROOM
Jeff McNeil began a rehab task with Low-A St. Lucie on Friday. The plan is to have him play Sunday and Tuesday. Then, they’ll see how he reacts in back-to-back video games. Having taken so many at-bats throughout spring coaching, the Mets don’t assume he’ll want many to get again into recreation form, however obliques might be extraordinarily delicate and straightforward to irritate, so the Mets will consider his progress after seeing how he responds to taking part in in back-to-back video games, which can possible be performed with Triple-A Syracuse.
Catcher Francisco Alvarez (hamate surgical procedure) will play Monday with McNeil earlier than shifting his rehab to Triple-A Syracuse.
Proper-hander Paul Blackburn (sore proper knee) threw one simulated inning Friday in Brooklyn. He’ll throw two innings of a reside bullpen Tuesday.
Initially Printed: April 11, 2025 at 10:34 PM EDT
