Mets have several big qualifying offer decisions to make this offseason

Coming off an inspiring season that ended just short of a trip to the World Series, the Mets enter an offseason that will be full of intrigue.

They have lots of pending free agents — including one of their biggest stars and the bulk of their starting rotation — and are expected to be much more aggressive than they were last offseason, when their only big swing was a pursuit of Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

But before the Mets get down to bolstering their roster ahead of the 2025 season, there are some immediate decisions that have to be made.

One of the first revolves around which players to extend a one-year qualifying offer to.

Teams have until five days after the conclusion of the World Series to extend the offer to any player who is eligible to receive it, with those players having a short window to accept or reject it.

For the Mets, since they went over the CBT (luxury tax) threshold in 2024, they will receive a draft pick to be made after the fourth round of the 2025 MLB Draft for any player who rejects their qualifying offer and signs elsewhere.

Meanwhile, any team that signs a player who rejected the QO is subject to the loss of one or more draft picks, though a team’s highest first-round pick is exempt. Still, the draft pick penalties can be rough — especially for teams that exceed the CBT threshold, with those teams losing their second-and fifth-highest pick in the upcoming draft.

As far as what happens if a player accepts the QO…

Any player who accepts will return to the team that extended the offer, and earn $21.05 million on a one-year deal.

So for the Mets, there is very little risk (and plenty of potential reward) involved when it comes to extending the offer to multiple players, which they are expected to do.

Who will those players be?

Pete Alonso

The mystery isn’t whether Alonso will get the QO and reject it. The mystery is what will happen after he rejects it.

Since taking over as president of baseball operations, David Stearns has answered most questions about Alonso’s future by saying that he views him as a long-term piece of the franchise.

And while some of that could be GM-speak, if Stearns really didn’t have interest in bringing Alonso back, he could’ve answered those questions in a more generic way — softening the blow before letting a franchise icon walk out the door. But he didn’t do that.

Either way, we’ll find out soon what the Mets’ appetite is when it comes to re-signing a player who will be entering his age-30 season in 2025 and will be seeking a big deal.

Alonso’s relatively down 2024 season should keep his contract length and dollars relatively reasonable, which would seemingly bode well when it comes to a potential Mets return. But all it takes is one reckless team to shake that up.

Odds of accepting the QO: Zero

Sean Manaea

Manaea has a player option for the 2025 season that is worth $13.5 million, but there is no reason for him to exercise it.

And once Manaea declines the option, the Mets will almost certainly tag him with the QO.

Off all of the Mets’ free agent pitchers, it makes the most sense to try to bring back Manaea, who changed his delivery to be like Chris Sale‘s in the middle of the season and turned into an ace for the remainder of it.

Whether Manaea keeps pitching at that level remains to be seen, but he clearly unlocked something.

His age (33) could be a concern for any team when it comes to a long-term deal, and having the QO attached to him won’t help.

But there’s a chance Manaea’s market is very good despite those factors.

Corbin Burnes and Max Fried will be at the top of the market, and Blake Snell will be in there if he opts out, but it’s an otherwise pretty uninspiring pool of starters.

Odds of accepting the QO: Slim to none

Luis Severino

The Mets signed Severino to a low-risk, high-reward one-year deal last offseason, and it paid off.

Severino rebounded from a very poor 2023 campaign and became one of the Mets’ rotation stalwarts, posting a 3.91 ERA and 1.24 WHIP while throwing 182.0 innings — the most he had in a season since 2018.

He is still relatively young, and will be entering his age-31 season in 2025.

What the Mets and other interested teams should be asking is whether this new version of Severino (his strikeout rate of 8.0 per nine in 2024 was identical to the one he had in 2023) will hold up over a multi-year deal.

It seems likely that Severino’s market will be solid. But if he puts feelers out there and determines that it’s not, he could have a safe landing back in Queens for one year — assuming the Mets extend the QO.

Odds of accepting the QO: Possible, but not probable