Porcello’s 1-year, $10 million deal gives Mets 6 starters

SAN DIEGO — The Mets, in a deeply on-brand move, wrapped up their Winter Meetings with a signing that led Brodie Van Wagenen to assert they have “probably the deepest starting pitching rotation in baseball.”

Right-handed starter Rick Porcello agreed to a one-year contract with the Mets early Thursday morning, a source confirmed. The deal came a day after the Mets signed former Cardinals right

hander Michael Wacha to a oneyear, $3 million deal with incentives.

One of the two pitchers will fill in behind Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Marcus Stroman and Steven Matz. Even though this

potential six-man rotation overcrowds things a bit, Van Wagenen looks at the Porcello and Wacha signings as starting pitching depth. The Mets’ GM has no intention of moving Matz — who tossed a couple of relief appearances in 2019 — to the bullpen, and doubled downonhis earlier declaration that Noah Syndergaard is not on the trade block.

“We feel good,” Van Wagenen said. “There was a lot talked about our lack of starting pitching depth over the course of the last couple of weeks. I think that story has changed. I think we’re probably the deepest starting pitching rotation in baseball.”

Porcello, 30, won the American League Cy Young award in 2016 after leading the league in wins (22) and finishing the season with the fifth-best ERA (3.15) in the AL. The very next season, Porcello proceeded to lead the AL in losses, hits allowed and home runs allowed.

He had the worst ERA (5.52) among qualified major-league starters last year in a disastrous season for the Red Sox. He became a World Series champion with Boston in 2018, going 17-7 on a 4.28 ERA in 191.1 innings pitched. He’s averaged 203 innings per162 games over the course of his 11-year career in the big leagues.

“Whenyoulook at Rick Porcello, he’s done it,” Van Wagenen said. “He’s been battle-tested, he’s performed in the playoffs. We believe that he knows what he wants to do. We want him to have a voice. We want him to be able to pitch the way he feels like his skill sets play best.”

Theacquisitions of both Porcello and Wacha almost certainly take away the possibility of Seth Lugo or Robert Gsellman entering the rotation. It allows the Mets to move on from starting pitching depth and focus on improving the bullpen. Van Wagenen said the Mets will head to “spring training with six bona fide starters” and he can’t speculate whoexactly will make up the rotation if all six pitchers all healthy.

At the very least, Porcello can be an inning-eater at the back-end of the rotation. But new pitching coach Jeremy Hefner and the Mets have “some ideas” that they hope will help Porcello return to his 2016 Cy Young form.

“We’re excited about the infrastructure that we created,” Van Wagenen said. “We put a new plan and a new process in place at the All-Star break last year, adding Jeremy Hefner to be the leader of that group only increases our functionality and our ability to get pitchers to maximize that performance.

“Jeremy has a good understanding of how to use technology to better pitchers that he’s working with. I think the team of the trio of pitching coaches that we have is something that we can help. Not just the potential for these new starting pitchers if we’re able to complete the deals, but also the existing guys we have,” he said.