Mets re-sign Drew Smith, who is unlikely to pitch this season, to one-year deal
Mets relief pitcher Drew Smith delivers against the Brewers during an MLB game on Opening Day at Citi Field on March 29, 2024. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — The Mets’ longest-tenured pitcher is back — sort of.
They announced Wednesday that they re-signed reliever Drew Smith to a one-year contract with a team option for 2026. He will make $1 million this season and would make $2 million next season, according to a person familiar with the deal.
Because Smith had his second Tommy John surgery last July, however, he is unlikely to pitch this year. So the Mets in effect will pay him to rehab and can keep him for another season if they like how he looks come November. Upon making his return official, the Mets also put Smith on the 60-day injured list.
Nonetheless, Smith is back with the only major-league team he has ever known. He joined the organization amid the 2017 trade-deadline fire sale — the return for sending Lucas Duda to the Rays — and debuted in 2018.
“He’s a guy that, when healthy, takes the ball. It was sad that he went down the way he went down, but he means a lot to the guys in the locker room,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “This is a guy that takes the baseball, gives you multiple innings, gives you high-leverage innings. He’s a gamer.”
Smith had a 3.06 ERA and two saves in 19 appearances prior to getting sidelined last year. He hurt his elbow during a game against the Cubs after entering for Edwin Diaz, who was ejected from the game for having a sticky substance on his hand.
With his return, Smith takes the title of the Mets’ longest-tenured pitcher back from Diaz, who was atop the list while Smith was a free agent.
On Blackburn’s back
During the Mets’ run through October, Paul Blackburn was stuck not just on the sidelines but in a hotel room and then a hospital bed as doctors worked to figure out why his spine was leaking.
Eventually, they fixed it via what he described as a “pretty noninvasive” surgery. An unusual baseball injury yielded an unusual baseball operation: They “shaved down some bone spurs” in his spine that had punctured the capsule, which thus had to be “stitched up,” Blackburn said.
Now, Blackburn is fully healthy and a normal starting pitcher, he said. He is competing for the No. 6 spot in the Mets’ rotation, this odd episode seemingly behind him.
“The chances of it happening again are zero, is what I was told,” Blackburn said. “I’m just glad I’m here, to do anything I can do to help this team reach an end goal. Last year, it was fun but also not fun, watching the playoffs — sitting in a hospital bed, watching everybody play in the playoffs, having fun, doing their thing. Hopefully I can be a part of that this year.”
Extra bases
The highlight of the first official workout for pitchers and catchers: Reliever-turned-starter Clay Holmes threw three innings of live batting practice, which is a very long outing at this time of year. “That’s pretty impressive,” Mendoza said. “You gotta give him credit. That shows all the work that he did as soon as we signed him [in December]” . . . Mark Vientos, who sported bleached blond hair during the offseason, ditched it because he didn’t want to bother with the upkeep. “Now I understand how women have to take care of themselves,” he said. “I couldn’t deal with it. I was like, you know, I’m going to shave it. I like waking up and not doing anything with my head.”
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
