Winter meetings round-up, Day 4: Mets sign Porcello, are inactive in Rule 5 draft, maybe shopping a starter?

After signing Michael Wacha yesterday, the Mets continued their relative activity and signed Rick Porcello to a one-year, $10 million deal at the final day of the winter meetings. Porcello, coming off a not-great year for Boston, has been a rumored Met target for some time.

Several reporters, starting with Ken Rosenthal, reported that, now that the Mets had a surplus of starting pitching, they may look to move a starter, paired with a salary dump player like Jed Lowrie or Yoenis Cespedes, to acquire a young catcher or, perhaps, some bullpen help.

In less alarming news, the Mets were inactive on either end of the Rule 5 Draft, only selecting one player (Adam Oller) in the minor league phase of the draft. With the 40 man roster full, and neither Wacha nor Porcello officially signed, the Mets didn’t have too many opportunities to grab folks from the draft, even if viable, cheap options were available.

The Mets have been linked to Rangers’ relief pitcher Jose Leclerc. Dominic Smith and Jed Lowrie are names that were mentioned in trade talks with the Rangers, before Leclerc was mentioned. Mets’ GM Brodie Van Wagenen spoke about the bullpen, saying that due to neither Robert Gsellman or Seth Lugo having to move to the rotation, and with Brad Brach returning, they don’t need to do as much work to improve the bullpen. Wait, what?

The team also inked minor league veteran Pedro Payano to a minor league deal. Payano pitched eight seasons for the Rangers organization, making his sole, brief major league tenure out of the Rangers’ bullpen in 2019.

The Starling Marte to the Mets rumors quieted down today as well, as the team doesn’t believe Marte would be a great improvement over a Brandon Nimmo/Jake Marisnick platoon.