Athletics to sign two-time All-Star right-hander

It’ll register as a shock for many to see the nomadic A’s, who will play next year in West Sacramento’s Sutter Health Park (home to the Giants’ Triple-A affiliate), land a notable free agent with a hefty multiyear deal. 

They’re in the process of relocating to Las Vegas and have reportedly been aggressively pursuing free agents to boost a payroll that entered the offseason without a single contract on the books in 2025. 

Some free agents — Walker Buehler among them — have entirely dismissed the notion of playing in a minor league facility. Still, with a reported target payroll in the $100M range, there’s long been a possibility for the A’s to be a surprise player in free agency. MLBTR’s Darragh McDonald explored just such a possibility at length last month.

The general thinking has been that the A’s will need to overpay to pursue top-end free agents this winter. The terms of Severino’s contract indeed suggest a clear willingness to spend well beyond market expectations to lure free agents to their new home. 

Severino’s deal includes both a larger guarantee than most anticipated and an opt-out opportunity. Because he rejected a qualifying offer from the Mets, Severino will cost the A’s their third-highest pick in next year’s draft. He’ll also net the Mets a compensatory pick, albeit only between the fourth and fifth rounds, because of their status as a luxury-tax payer.

The $100M target payroll likely stems from the Athletics’ status as a revenue-sharing recipient. The franchise was stripped of its revenue-sharing benefits last decade after failing to utilize those funds to improve the on-field product as is a stipulated requirement. 

The 2022-26 collective bargaining agreement restored the A’s as a revenue-sharing recipient, and they’ve since spent modestly in free agency to keep payroll at least in step with the other lowest-spending clubs in the league. 

The deal with Severino signals a willingness to spend a bit beyond that point. It is, incredibly, the largest contract in franchise history, nominally surpassing the six-year, $66M contract extension signed by third baseman Eric Chavez more than two decades ago.

Severino, 31, will immediately jump to the top of the A’s rotation. He’s likely ticketed for their Opening Day start, barring another notable acquisition via free agency or trade. He’ll lead a staff that currently projects to also include JP Sears, Mitch Spence and Joey Estes. 

The A’s have a variety of in-house candidates for the fifth spot, though the Severino deal rather obviously opens the door for GM David Forst to sign/trade for another starter of note to further solidify the bunch.

Severino, of course, looked the part of a budding ace for the Yankees in 2017-18 when he posted 384 2/3 innings with a 3.18 ERA, 28.8 percent strikeout rate, 6.2 percent walk rate and 45.8 percent grounder rate in his age-23 and age-24 seasons. 

The flamethrowing righty averaged better than 97 mph on his heater, recorded a hefty 12.7 percent swinging-strike rate and generally had the makings of a star. The Yankees agreed, signing him to a four-year, $40M extension with an option for a fifth season.

That deal bought out all of Severino’s arbitration years and his first free-agent season. At the time, some thought a pitcher with his upside and demonstrated excellence to date was perhaps selling himself short. 

In the long run, it worked out wonderfully, as injuries kept Severino off the field and rendered him a shell of his former self when healthy enough to take the mound. From 2019-23, Severino managed only 209 1/3 innings in the majors. His 2023 campaign included 89 1/3 frames with a 6.65 ERA.

The 2024 season marked a resurgence for Severino, who inked a one-year, $13M deal with the Mets on the heels of that injury-plagued finish to his Yankees tenure. The right-hander’s 182 innings nearly matched his total over the five prior calendar years. He logged a 3.91 ERA with a below-average but passable 21.2 percent strikeout rate and a strong 7.6 percent walk rate. His 46 percent ground-ball rate, while not elite, was comfortably north of the league average.

At the same time, Severino simply wasn’t the dominant force he once looked to be earlier in his career. His average fastball with the Mets was about 1.5 mph off from its peak levels. His 9.4 percent swinging-strike rate was decidedly below average — a near mirror-image of his 9.1 percent mark in that disastrous 2023 season and nowhere close to his career-best 13.3 percent rate. 

Opponents made contact on just 81.9 percent of Severino’s pitches within the strike zone in 2017-18 — the league average was 84.7 percent — but did so at a whopping 88.2 percent clip in 2024 (when the league average was 85.2 percent).

When the Mets signed Severino to his one-year deal, it had the makings of an upside play on a former front-of-the-rotation arm. Last year’s rebound showed that he was healthy but also seemed to further solidify that his prior ace-caliber form is in the rearview mirror. 

Severino now has the feel of a third or fourth starter, making his $22.333M annual salary and an opt-out rather jarring.

Many pundits thought Severino could have — and should have — accepted the Mets’ $21.05M qualifying offer; he and his agents deserve credit for not simply eclipsing that guarantee notably but surpassing that number on an annual basis over a lengthy deal that affords him another bite at free agency in the 2026-27 offseason. 

The contract tops recent guarantees for Chris Bassitt, who was seen as a steady and dependable No. 2-3 arm, and Yusei Kikuchi, whose torrid finish with the Astros made him one of the most sought-after pitchers on this offseason’s market. Both pitchers signed for $63M over the same three-year term.

For the A’s, a commitment this weighty was likely deemed a necessity to land a quality mid-rotation arm whose velocity and ground-ball tendencies perhaps create some hope that he can still eke out some incremental improvements over his 2024 form. 

That said, there’s quite a bit of injury risk still associated with Severino, and fielding-independent metrics like FIP (4.21) and SIERA (4.22) are more bearish than his earned run average. There’s little doubt he improves the club and shows that the A’s are serious about spending this winter, but it’s nonetheless a steep price to pay when taken in totality.

Severino will nevertheless add some credibility to a rotation that was largely lacking it. And the A’s, with a burgeoning core of quality position players — Brent Rooker, JJ Bleday, Lawrence Butler, Shea Langeliers — could hope that a few subsequent additions and strides from young players like Jacob Wilson, Tyler Soderstrom and Zack Gelof might help them exceed expectations sooner than most thought possible.