Sean Manaea is heading back to the New York Mets. Reports from ESPN’s Jeff Passan and MLB Network’s Jon Heyman early this morning have Manaea landing back with the Mets on a three-year deal worth $75 million ($25 million AAV). It is similar to the deal that veteran right-hander Nathan Eovaldi landed with the Texas Rangers last week.

Manaea signed a two-year deal with the Mets last winter and opted out of that contract after a stellar first campaign in the NL West. Through 32 starts, the left-hander authored a 3.47 ERA with 184 strikeouts (9.1 K/9) and a 3.1 BB/9 through a career-high 181 2/3 innings. He ranked 20th in the league in ERA and posted a stellar 3.83 FIP with a 2.8 fWAR last season. Ratio-wise, Manaea saw an uptick in his fly-ball rates to 29.1% while his ground-ball numbers dipped to 37%, which is similar to his Padres days but he instead struggled to a 4.96 ERA and a 4.53 FIP through 30 outings.

He was one of the Mets’ go-to arms in the postseason, with the Indiana product making four starts spread across the NL Wild Card through the NLCS before the team was bested by the World Series winning Los Angeles Dodgers. His best outing came in the NLDS against the Phillies, where he went seven strong, allowing just one earned run and three hits with seven strikeouts.

Before joining the Mets, Manaea had spent most of his career with the Oakland A’s, making his debut in 2016. The 32-year-old spent six seasons with the A’s, crafting a 3.86 ERA across 129 outings with a 7.9 K/9. The left-hander was traded to the San Diego Padres early into the 2022 campaign, spending one season there, before signing a two-year deal with the San Francisco Giants, which included a player option for the 2023/2024 offseason. With the Giants, he mostly pitched out of the bullpen (37 outings, 10 starts) and amassed a 1.241 WHIP. He signed with the Mets that winter.

In his lone season with New York, Manaea crafted a +16 pitching run value. While most of his Baseball Savant metrics ranked in the middle, he crafted a 98th percentile fastball run value with his sinker (44.7% usage) and four-seamer (11.3%), which combined for a +19 run value. The sinker did most of the heavy lifting, as opposing batters produced a .201 average and a .285 wOBA on the pitch with a 21% whiff rate.

Manaea cashes in this winter on a healthy pay raise after opting out of his previous deal with the Mets, joining the likes of Eovaldi, Yusei Kikuchi, Blake Snell, and Max Fried who have all earned contracts with AAVs past the $20 million mark.