The New York Mets may be aggressive on the Jake Odorizzi market.
Two things appear to be true when it comes to the New York Mets, they are going to be very active this winter, but as to who they could go out and acquire, the options are seemingly limitless.
The Mets figure to be one of the top suitors for Trevor Bauer, they could also be a landing spot for George Springer and/or J.T. Realmuto, and they may even be major players in a Francisco Lindor or Sonny Gray trade at some point, but it’s clear that the Mets don’t want to wait around too long to start making big moves.
As reported by Joel Sherman of the New York Post, the Mets are interested in signing Jake Odorizzi and aren’t eager to see how his market shakes out. The Mets recently signed Odorizzi’s former teammate in Trevor May and pitching coach Jeremy Hefner is familiar with Odorizzi during their time together with the Minnesota Twins.
New York needs more than just Bauer or Gray in their rotation, hence why pairing Jake Odorizzi with either of those bigger targets would be a great signing to round out the backend of their rotation.
Odorizzi has been relatively healthy across his career, outside of a few issues in 2020 which didn’t involve his elbow or shoulder. He logged just 13 innings last season, but was an All-Star as recently as 2019 and can be a solid 2-3 WAR pitcher when healthy.
The Mets want to make some big waves over the next few weeks and there’s little doubt that they won’t. The energy that Steve Cohen has injected into this team was enough for Stroman to quickly accept his qualifying offer and if Odorizzi wants to pitch for a contender, the Mets are one organization poised to quickly put themselves in that position.
With Noah Syndergaard still needing time before a comeback and a shaky backend of the rotation in place, signing Jake Odorizzi makes a lot of sense.