NY Mets Monday Morning GM: The increasingly fortunate $38.5 million free agent miss

Let’s go back a year. Before the Juan Soto hype, the desire to reunite with Sean Manaea, and the pots and pans being banged together for everything else we wanted them to do this past winter, the New York Mets were a team looking for short-term risks and nothing else. Among those choices was Lucas Giolito. Some incredibly good seasons in the recent past and a not so good pair in 2022 and 2023 seemed to fit a familiar narrative of what the Mets were building.

Rumors aplenty about the Mets’ pursuit of him (they didn’t make a documentary about it FWIW), Giolito would end up with the Boston Red Sox who can’t seem to do anything but replicate the Mets. His deal came out to a guarantee of $38.5 million with a base salary of $18 million last year, another $19 million this year, and a couple of different directions for 2026, the bare minimum being a $1.5 million buyout.

The math all adds up. What doesn’t is Giolito’s production. It has been nothing but zeroes and that won’t change anytime soon.

Lucas Giolito is the dodged bullet you might have forgotten the Mets Matrixed away from

A UCL injury that went from discomfort to season-ending surgery in mid-March is what claimed Giolito’s 2024 season. It happens. Now, while less concerning, a hamstring injury is what will land him on the IL to begin the season.

The Red Sox can look at it two ways. The good side: it’s a new injury therefore not of grave concern. The bad side: yet another part of his body seems to be breaking down.

Giolito made just one spring training appearance, lasting an inning and allowing 2 earned runs while walking a pair. Red Sox fans haven’t exactly had the chance to get too hyped about him. Their main storylines have been about a disgruntled star infielder who insists on playing a position he is below-average defending.

A gander at the Red Sox roster shows some of the same philosophical beliefs as the Mets. They were the winners of the Walker Buehler sweepstakes. Alex Bregman eventually chose them on a short-term, high AAV deal which seems to be right from the David Stearns’ playbook. Their bullpen includes Liam Hendriks and Michael Fulmer who were each signed last February with the knowledge that they were pieces for 2025, not 2024.

Giolito was a pitcher many of us thought the Mets could use in their rotation last year. Viewed as a missed opportunity at first, it has turned out to be an increasingly valuable disaster the team was able to avoid.