WEST SACRAMENTO — Luis Severino can’t be too sure, but as he recalls, he was about $6 million away from signing with the Mets once again. Instead, he ended up in Sacramento, a long way away from the bright lights of Broadway where he pitched for nearly a decade.
Sutter Health Park, a minor league field the A’s are sharing with the Triple-A Sacramento River Cats for at least the next three seasons, doesn’t compare to Yankee Stadium or Citi Field, to say the least, but according to Severino, the A’s are making the best of it.
The right-hander was awarded a three-year, $67 million contract in December in a somewhat stunning deal. Severino was ready to go back to Flushing and hoped for a reunion with the Mets after a magical run to the NLCS with the Amazin’s in 2024, and was willing to return on a lesser deal.
“I actually asked for less money to stay there,” Severino said Friday ahead of the Mets series against the A’s. “But I was not in their plans.”
What was communicated to Severino by his agent was that the Mets were willing to offer him a contract similar to the one Frankie Montas signed, two years for $34 million. After going 11-7 with a 3.91 ERA over 31 starts for the Mets last season, Severino felt he was worth more money than that. He felt a two-year, $40 million contract was fair.
“At the beginning, I was shocked,” Severino said. “But in the end, I knew that it was business.”
The A’s blew that contract out of the water.
On the outside, the optics of the Sacramento situation might not seem enticing, but Severino saw a team that checked his boxes. The club wanted to field a more competitive team for its first year in Sacramento to attract fans in a new city and entice the existing fans to give the team another chance.
Last year, Severino and the Mets surprised baseball by making it to within two games of the World Series. In the A’s, he saw a young team that with enough growth, could surprise at some point in the near future. He knew he could play a big role.
“Every offseason, I have a meeting with my agent about what we’re looking for, and at the end, this team was the most close to what we were looking for, ” he said. “A young team who has talent, wants to go out there and play baseball. Last year, nobody thought we were going to the playoffs, and we made it. I feel like there are a lot of teams that have something to show. This is one of those teams.”
The Mets still feel like a family to Severino. He spent time catching up with them before Friday’s opening, with traveling secretary Edgar Suero even bringing a watch for him (it cost all of $20). He still thinks highly of the organization, especially the training staff. For the first time since 2018, Severino didn’t miss a start, and he felt the Mets medical staff deserved a lot of credit in keeping him healthy.
While things are different for Severino in Northern California, different isn’t necessarily bad. His family has landed in a suburb toward the Sierra Nevada foothills, a hillside community that backs up to Folsom Lake. Severino said it’s a “beautiful” place that his family has, so far, enjoyed. While the area doesn’t have a large Dominican population, Sacramento has long been home to a large Latino community.
Severino will face his old team Sunday, hoping to get back on track after losing his last two decisions.
“He was really good for us, and I had a really good relationship with him, even when we were both with the ...
