After losing out on Yoshinobu Yamamoto, both the Mets and the Yankees have continued their search for a starting pitcher.
On Wednesday, Jeff Passan of ESPN wrote that another young pitcher, the Marlins’ Jesus Luzardo is a name to look for in potential trade talks with both New York teams.
According to Passan, Miami’s general manager Peter Bendix “is in listening mode on all of its players except wunderkind right-hander Eury Perez.” This makes Luzardo a viable option for the Mets and the Yankees, should they be interested in trading for an arm.
Luzardo, 26, is just one year older than Yamamoto, 25, who signed a 12-year, $325 million deal with the Dodgers in December. He is also under club control until 2027 and will cost less — Luzardo is expected to earn $6 million in arbitration in 2024, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts.
The Lima, Peru native also comes with a big-league track record. After a rocky start to his career, Luzardo posted a 5.36 ERA in his first 43 games (27 starts), he found something in his last two seasons in Miami. In 50 games between 2022-23, the lefty pitcher posted a 3.52 ERA with 328 strikeouts over 279 innings pitched, 10.6 strikeouts per nine innings, which is third in the National League.
Luzardo’s success comes as he continues to hone in on the strike zone. In each of his last three seasons, his walk rate has dropped, from 4.5 walks per nine innings in 2021 to 3.1 in 2022 to 2.8 in 2023. Pair this with his increased strikeout rate and you have a pitcher with a better strikeouts-to-walks ratio (3.8) than the 2022 and 2023 NL Cy Young Award winners Sandy Alcantara (3.2) and Blake Snell (2.4).
Manuel Gomez may be reached at [email protected].
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