Mets Sign RHP Rick Porcello To A One-Year Contract

December 16th, 2019

FLUSHING, N.Y., December 16, 2019 – The New York Mets today announced that the club has signed Cy Young Award-winning right-handed pitcher Rick Porcello to a one-year deal. In a corresponding move, right-handed pitcher Stephen Nogosek has been designated for assignment.

Porcello, 30, has spent the last five seasons with Boston, where he compiled a 73-55 record. He ranks third in the majors with 64 wins since 2016, including when he won a major league-leading 22 games and won the AL Cy Young Award that season.

The Morristown, New Jersey native is tied for 11th among active pitchers with 149 career wins and has earned at least 10 victories in all but one of his 11 major league campaigns. He is one of just five pitchers with at least 10 seasons with double-digit wins since his rookie year in 2009, joining Zack Greinke (11), Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander and Jon Lester.

“Rick has been one of the most dependable, durable starters of the last decade,” Mets Executive Vice President and General Manager Brodie Van Wagenen said. “He is a proven winner who has reached the pinnacle of the sport on both a team level and as an individual with a World Series championship and a Cy Young Award.”

In the last 10 seasons, Porcello ranks in the top-10 in the majors in wins (seventh, 135), games started (fifth, 308) and innings pitched (eighth, 1,866.2).

He ranked seventh among qualifying AL pitchers with 2.32 walks per nine innings last year and is the only qualifying pitcher to average fewer than 3.0 walks per nine innings in each of the last 11 seasons. Over the last four years (2016-2019), Porcello and Justin Verlander are the only pitchers in the majors to make 32 or more starts.

Porcello helped the Red Sox win the World Series in 2018 as Boston won four of the five games he appeared in that postseason.

Porcello owns a career record of 149-118 with a 4.36 ERA (988 earned runs/2,037.1 innings) in 343 games (339 starts) with Detroit (2009-2014) and Boston (2015-2019).