New York Mets Sign Adam Ottavino to Two-Year, $14.5 Million Deal

The Mets continued to address their bullpen on Tuesday as they brought back a familiar face in Adam Ottavino on a two-year pact.

The New York Mets busy offseason continues.

According to Jeff Passan of ESPN, the team has reached a two-year deal with right-handed pitcher Adam Ottavino for $14.5 million. The deal includes an opt-out after 2023 and $1 million in performance based incentives per year.

Ottavino, 37, spent the 2022 season with the Mets and primarily worked as a setup man for closer Edwin Díaz.

In 66 appearances, the Brooklyn native had a 2.06 ERA, 2.85 FIP, 2.79 xFIP and was worth 1.1 fWAR.

The 12-year veteran did an excellent job of trimming down his walks in 2022, with his base-on-balls rate ranking in the 77th percentile by Baseball Savant.

Ottavino induced a ground ball over 50 percent of the time last season, had a shiny 89.1 strand rate, and didn’t get crushed by the long ball with a HR/9 under 1.00.

The rest of his Savant page also shows how important he was to the Mets’ bullpen in 2022:

After introducing new ace Justin Verlander on Tuesday at Citi Field, Mets general manager Billy Eppler jokingly told the media, “you don’t have travel plans this week, do you?” When asked if the team was planning to make anymore free agent moves.

Just a couple hours later, the Mets picked up Ottavino and perhaps even more moves could be in the works.

A name connected with the Mets as of Tuesday was Chicago White Sox reliever Liam Hendriks, according to Michael Mayer of MetsMerized.

The Mets have done a good job in rebuilding a bullpen that saw a lot of its members depart via free agency this winter.

The team has now re-signed Díaz and Ottavino, signed David Robertson, traded for Brooks Raley, Jeff Brigham and Elieser Hernandez, selected Zach Greene in the Rule 5 draft and claimed Stephen Ridings, Tayler Saucedo and William Woods off waivers to help replenish the relief corps this winter.

As Passan notes, with the Ottavino deal, the Mets payroll currently stands at roughly $358 million, and $446 million after the luxury tax, by and large the biggest payroll in MLB history.