Left-hander Sean Manaea and the New York Mets have agreed to a three-year, $75 million deal, ESPN reports. The team has not confirmed the deal.

Few players have improved their overall profile and value in 2024 more than Manaea, who signed a two-year, $28 million deal with the Mets last offseason and opted out after the first season.

Manaea set career highs in innings pitched (181 2/3) and ERA (3.47) and was nothing short of spectacular from July through the end of the postseason. In 21 starts from July 1 through his final postseason start, Manaea had a 3.40 ERA, a 0.99 WHIP and 127 strikeouts in 124 1/3 innings. Manaea played an integral role in the Mets’ magical postseason run, posting a 2.65 ERA in his first three postseason starts (17 innings) before having a breakout performance (five runs in two) in Game 6 of the NLCS against the Dodgers innings).

None of this was a coincidence. Taking inspiration from a start from Chris Sale, Manaea lowered his arm significantly to create a harder angle for batsmen. He supplemented this with a simplified pitch arsenal, relying more on sinkers and sweepers. With those changes came a pitcher who provided both quality and quantity – one who finished the year with a 3.59 ERA in 200 2/3 combined regular-season and postseason innings.

To say this was an improvement over 2022-23, when Manaea had a 4.87 ERA in 277 innings as both a starter and reliever, would be an understatement. Set to be 33 before Opening Day in 2025, Manaea looks like a legitimate middle-of-the-rotation starter who can produce in October.