Mets Sign Jose Ureña To Minor League Deal

10:52am: Ureña’s deal has a $2MM base salary and another $750K available via incentives, reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post.

8:20am: Veteran right-hander Jose Ureña popped up at Mets camp this morning and tells Newsday’s Tim Healey that he’s signed a minor league deal with the club. He’ll join their big league camp for the remainder of spring training. Ureña is repped by Premier Talent Sports & Entertainment.

The 33-year-old Ureña adds some non-roster depth to a Mets rotation that’s already been hit by a pair of spring injuries. Left-hander Sean Manaea has an oblique strain that’ll likely prompt a season-opening IL stint, though he could return by mid-April. Right-hander Frankie Montas has a more significant injury — a lat strain that’s shut him down from throwing for more than a month. He’s likely looking at a mid-May return in a best-case scenario.

Ureña spent the 2024 season with the Rangers, working primarily out of the bullpen but also making nine starts over the course of the season. He totaled 109 innings with a solid 3.80 earned run average, though not all of his numbers looked quite so sharp.

Ureña’s 15.1% strikeout rate was among the lowest in the league, and his 8.4% walk rate was roughly average. He notched a strong 50.1% ground-ball rate and kept the ball in the yard nicely enough (1.07 HR/9), but metrics like FIP (4.62) and SIERA (4.66) felt like he had a fair bit of good fortune to reach that more impressive ERA mark. Ureña’s .273 average on balls in play was a bit shy of the .289 mark he carried into the season, and his 75% strand rate was also higher than both league average (72%) and his career mark prior to 2024 (69.5%).

On the whole, Ureña has a 4.76 ERA in 948 1/3 big league innings. He had some stretches early in his career where he delivered solid midrotation results for the Marlins but has since been hit hard more often than not as he’s moved into journeyman status. His solid 2024 run in Texas was the first time since 2018 that he’s posted an ERA south of 5.00.

Ureña isn’t going to jump right into the Mets’ pitching plans, but there’s also little harm in seeing if a veteran arm coming of a nice rebound effort can sustain some of his production — especially early on while the rest of the pitching staff is a bit banged up. Even with Montas and Manaea ailing, the Mets have signaled they plan to stick with in-house arms, by and large. Kodai Senga, David Peterson, Clay Holmes, Paul Blackburn, Griffin Canning and Tylor Megill give the Mets six experienced arms on which to rely. Top prospect Brandon Sproat could join the mix midseason.

As such, if Ureña is to make the club, it’d likely be as a swingman — but it’s equally or more likely that he’ll opt back into the market if he doesn’t make the club. As an Article XX(b) free agent (i.e. six-plus years MLB service, finished the prior season on a major league roster/injured list), Ureña will have a trio of uniform opt-out dates on his contract: five days before the season (March 22), May 1 and June 1.