Should the Giants try to (re)sign Sean Manaea?

Sean Manaea overhauled his mechanics midseason and is making waves in the playoffs. Should the Giants try to coax the lefty back to the Bay?

New York Mets left-hander Sean Manaea tossed a gem against the Doogers on Monday’s Game 2 of the NLCS. Down 0-1 in the series, in an ostensibly must-win scenario for New York, Manaea played stopper, limiting the most potent offense in the Majors over 5+ innings to just two hits. The mistakes were minimal. Serving up a 3-1 fastball over the plate to all-or-nothing Max Muncy with a 6-run lead was warranted. Other than that homer, I can’t recall a ball leaving the infield. The trouble that chased Manaea in the 6th simmered because of the two walks to start the frame (4 BB in total) but boiled over when his defense bobbled and booted playable grounders behind him.

After the Mets sealed the win and evened the series (their down 1-2 now after Game 3’s 8-0 loss), Manaea’s walk total or the abrupt exit in the 6th were quickly drowned out by the highlights, notably striking out Shohei Ohtani twice. Ohtani striking out isn’t a rare feat. His 22% K% is in the 44th percentile. What was notable was the approach, the efficiency. Picked-apart, dismantled would be appropriate descriptors.

In the bottom of the 1st, Manaea ping-ponged between his sinker and sweeper. The wide breaking ball caused the low-90s fastball to seemingly jump out of Manaea’s hand. A middle-middle sinker froze Ohtani for strike two. Two offerings later, on the exact same pitch, he swung so late he nearly hit the ball out of the catcher’s mitt.

In the 3rd, Manaea K’ed Ohtani on three-straight fastballs. Strike two and three both passed over the center of the plate without a swing from the once-in-a-generation slugger. He stared quizzically up at the sky after the third pitch zipped past. Another fastball that he didn’t anticipate. Even on the way back to the dugout, he seemed uncertain about what he saw.

The only explanation for someone like Ohtani taking two batting practice pitches is Manaea’s restructured mechanics.

After a brief foray into power pitching, Manaea has dropped all pretenses in his ninth season in the Majors and decided to get weird. He dipped his shoulder and found a funky new release point for his offerings while his right leg’s long stride pops him off the mound towards the first base line. His extension has always been excellent, now his arm angle has dropped 10 degrees on average making for an uncomfortable at-bat for the hitter. Manaea’s pitches approach the hitter as if thrown by the second baseman. To a lefty, everything looks like some ridiculous push-broom sweeper. Cloaked in this delivery are these unremarkable river stone sinkers that slayed a Goliath. Against righties, he filters in a change-up that keeps them from hunting his heaters.

Great artists steal and this new revolution in mechanics was pilfered from veteran Chris Sale. Manaea unabashedly credits watching the veteran Sale carve up Mets hitters from the bench on July 25th for his turnaround.

Before that July start, Manaea’s 2024 season was far from lost. He had posted a 3.70 ERA (4.18 FIP) over his first 20 starts (106 IP). Still, Sale breezed into town at an opportune time: Manaea had been in a little bit of a dip in terms of results having surrendered 10 runs over his last three games and was probably itching to mix something up. Sale’s wingy motion is a rare bird. A lanky spinning of limbs that is hard to ignore, especially when he’s dealing. In Queens that summer night, Sale struck out 9 of Manaea’s teammates over 7.1 innings. I’d imagine Manaea’s ears were full of the disgruntled mutterings of hitters. Music to any pitcher’s ears.

Manaea unveiled the new mechanics against the Twins on July 30th and struck out 11, allowing just 2 hits over 7 scoreless innings. His next start against the Cardinals, he tossed another 7 shutout frames with double-digit strikeout totals. Manaea had only thrown 7 complete innings twice before lowering his arm slot. After, he did it seven times, and authored quality starts in 10 of his last 12 appearances. Opponents’ batting average dropped from .224 to .170 while their slugging sapped from .360 to .307. His K-rate jumped. His WHIP fell from 1.25 to 0.85, thanks in large part to him shaving nearly two walks off his BB-per-9-innings rate.

Though the mental and physical difficulties Manaea overcame to pull off this mimicry mid-season shouldn’t be understated, this kind of “reinvention” isn’t much of a surprise for anyone who’s followed his career recently. A large man who pitched softly, part of the draw for Farhan Zaidi to sign Manaea after the 2022 season was a compelling up-tick in fastball velocity thanks to off-season work with Driveline. The average velocity of his four-seamer (a pitch he hadn’t thrown before 2021) jumped from 91 MPH to 94 MPH. As a Giant, he showed off this newly developed power by throwing the fastball 56% of the time. He reconfigured himself as a long reliever after a rough start as a member of 2023’s rotation and found consistent success attacking opponents in the middle innings with his to-the-point four-seam approach. His K-rate rose to above 10 strikeouts per 9 innings. He went the summer—50-plus innings—without giving up a homer.

As a Met, that pitch has been docked from the menu, replaced with a combination of his sinker and sweeper/slider. On Monday, he didn’t throw his four-seamer once, relying on his sinker 62% of the time with its average velocity down to 91 MPH.

Life in the Majors is similar to the governing principles of the natural world: adapt to survive. While Manaea is darting and carving around opponents bats and raising eyebrows around the league, it’s the adjustments — and the willingness to make them — that intrigues me most about him as a Free Agent.

The 32-year-old will be 33 next year (this is how age works) and has another opt-out built into his contract. It feels somewhat certain he’ll exercise that right to cannonball into the free agent pool this winter. He bet on himself after a strong finish in 2023, and he’ll do it again after the recent high-profile successes in the postseason even though the starting pitcher market is a saturated one. Corbin Burnes, Gerrit Cole, Blake Snell, Jack Flaherty, Max Fried are all either unrestricted or have opt-outs at their disposal. An extension for Snell is the priority for Buster Posey, both for the franchise as well as a first feather in his cap as the San Francisco Giants’ new Grand POBO. Snell will be expensive and then some, a price ultimately paid by someone else after Scott Boras leverages San Francisco’s offer.

A Manaea reunion could be a nice safety plan to the top-o-the-rotation headliners of this offseason. Tonally it might reek of the same “minor” moves in free agency that displeased fans during the Zaidi Administration, and Posey might be hesitant to retread the path of his predecessor, but I think it’s fair to say that a Manaea re-signing wouldn’t be merely a “Take 2”. He’s clearly a different pitcher now coming off a career best ERA (3.46), career high in innings pitched (181.2) as well as a 2.8 fWAR mark—his highest since 2021 his last season in Oakland. Manaea’s personality and work ethic is also a draw. Success hasn’t been immediate or guaranteed or sustained over his career. “Nice guys finish last” is true enough in sports, but temperament and perspective over a long season also matters. The wisdom-born-from-experience Manaea has is probably way more accessible to burgeoning pitchers than Snell’s dominant, but a tad aloof, left arm.

A deal with Manaea will need to reflect some multi-year security as well as get a postseason performance bump in terms of cost (he made $14 million this year). The Giants might have a leg-up on the other suitors given that Bob Melvin managed him for all but two seasons of his career. The resignation of Brian Price and the elevation of J.P. Martinez as pitching coach would be an attractive development to the forward thinking Manaea.

The dubious team role he dealt with in 2023 won’t fly though. A more permanent slot in the middle of the rotation will be required — a reasonable request given the year he’s had. On paper the Giants rotation appears crowded with veterans Logan Webb, Robbie Ray (who will certainly opt-in to the 23 million guaranteed to him) and Jordan Hicks, as well as the younger arms of Kyle Harrison, Hayden Birdsong, Tristan Beck, Mason Black, and Keaton Winn—but fans know all too well how quickly pitching depth can become pitching dearth. Hicks is still finding his legs as a starter. Ray’s arm might fall off at any moment. Everyone of those names except for Webb comes burdened with their caveats and worries. Injuries or work limits or accumulated stress on arms—whatever it is—always comes, always lays waste to a club’s pitching plans. Innings will still need to be pitched no matter what. Rolling out a rubber arm like Manaea’s, who’s thrown no fewer than 158 innings during his last three seasons as a full-time starter (so not including ‘23 with the Giants) and is becoming increasingly less reliant on velocity, would help lengthen and strengthen an oft beleaguered staff.