Mets general manager Brodie Van Wagenen addressed the void left by Zack Wheeler in New York's starting rotation, reportedly inking former All Star Michael Wacha to a one-year deal. Wacha's deal is said to be for $3 million with the potential to add $7 million with the included incentives.
Wacha wasn't one of the marquee names on the free agent market. The rest of the NL East already began to improve their respective pitching staffs — the Nationals re-signed Stephen Strasburg, the Braves gave veteran Cole Hamels $18 million for one year while Wheeler earned a five-year contract from the Phillies. WFAN's Gregg Giannotti says Wacha has "high upside" and is a "cheap" option, and the Mets have to be optimistic that he can return to his vintage form.
"When you're working under the budget constraints that Brodie Van Wagenen is working under right now - that he will not have when Steve Cohen swoops in and changes out lives - this is the crap he's got to do," Giannotti said. "He has to find that guy who was great a couple of years ago, that no one wants to pay right now, that's trying to resurrect his career because he's been dealing with injuries. You throw him in the backend of your rotation, you cross your fingers and hope he turns back into something."
The 28-year-old struggled with the Cardinals in 2019. He went 6-7 and finished with a career-worst 4.76 ERA in his seventh MLB season. It's nothing reminiscent of the dominance he displayed during the Cardinals' World Series run in 2015, where he earned All Star honors and won 17 games, the most he's tallied since making his debut. WFAN's Boomer Esiason agreed with Giannotti that Wacha is "trying to bet on himself" by signing on for only one season.
"That's what the Phillies are doing with Didi Gregorious," Esiason said. "That's the same thing. We all love Didi so we all see him in a different light than what we might see Michael Wacha but he only signed a one-year deal much like Michael Wacha is trying to bet on himself."
Added Gio, "Didi, coming off the injury, still had a pretty productive year last year. Michael Wacha really did not."
The deal comes in wake of Gerrit Cole's record-breaking nine-year, $324 million deal with the Yankees. While the Yankees went after the top name available, Esiasion says the Mets didn't need to splurge for their rotation.
"I was at this Investors Bank event last night at MetLife Stadium and all anybody could talk about was 'oh, the Mets signed Michael Wacha,'" Esiason recalled. "I'm like, 'We have our ace. Don't worry about it. We've got Jacob deGrom, (Noah) Syndergaard, (Marcus) Stroman, (Steven) Matz ... we have to fill the fifth starter spot. Turns out to be Wacha. He's a former Brodie Van Wagenen client so it keeps on coming and it's going to keep coming for however long he's in this job. So you've got to hope Michael Wacha shows up and maybe a little less pressure? He's not the guy at the top of the rotation. He's the guy at the backend of the rotation."
Giannotti agreed with Esiason's thought and Van Wagenen's approach to the market, but raised concern with the Mets' general manager already trying to fix his most recent mistakes.
"You didn't need an ace," Giannotti said. "You didn't need a No. 2 starter. You didn't really need a No. 3 starter. This is where they were going to go with it. It is a little bit alarming to me that you've heard rumors of Brodie Van Wagenen trying to dump salaries of guys that he just signed last year like Jed Lowrie, who was a CAA client he brought in. Or Jeurys Familia, who they brought back in, made a spectacle of that. That turned out to be a mess and now they're trying to unload him. You just don't like to see in that first offseason that he's got this many mistakes where he's trying to move on from them this quickly ... I just think it illustrates he had really a miserable offseason last year."
Click the audio player above to listen to Boomer & Gio's open in its entirety.
