Mets, reliever Dellin Betances agree to one-year deal
The New York Mets have signed right-handed reliever Dellin Betances to a one-year contract.
The deal is worth $10.5 million, but Betances could earn $13 million if he appears in 70 games. There is a player option in 2021 and a vesting player option for 2022, sources told ESPN's Jeff Passan.
The 6-foot-8 Betances, who has 621 strikeouts in 381 2/3 career innings, is a flamethrower with a fastball that clocks close to 100 mph, but injury problems kept him out almost all of last season. He was diagnosed with an impingement in his pitching shoulder after his fourth spring training appearance on March 17. His rehabilitation stopped when the team said June 11 that he had strained his right latissimus dorsi muscle, and Betances did not start a minor league injury rehabilitation assignment until September.
Betances finally made it back into a big league game before the end of the season, when a partially torn left Achilles tendon suffered when he hopped on the mound after celebrating a strikeout ended his comeback after just eight pitches.
But Betances has been one of the American League's most reliable setup men during his run of seven seasons with the Yankees. A four-time All-Star, Betances is 21-22 with a 2.36 career ERA in 358 relief appearances over his seven big-league seasons. During one three-year stretch in the Bronx, he chalked up an incredible 392 strikeouts to lead the league three times in that category, with an earned-run average of 1.93.
Betances began his major league career in 2011 with the Yankees; he mostly was used as a starter in his early years, then began moving into a relief role.
