The Mets have agreed to a five-year, $25.5 million deal with left-hander Jonathon Niese, CBSSports.com insider Jon Heyman confirms. According to Heyman, the team has two options for $10 and $10.5, raising the deal to a possible $46 million over seven years.
The deal is similar to Derek Holland's recent five-year, $28.5 million deal with the Rangers.
The 25-year-old Niese was 11-11 with a 4.40 ERA in 27 games and 26 starts for the Mets last season. Overall, he's 22-23 with a 4.39 ERA over parts of four seasons. He was scheduled to be under team control for four more years before the deal, which buys out one year of free agency, with the chance for more.
Teams across baseball are locking in young players before they can reach arbitration, giving them cost certainty over the life of the contract, but also gambling that production won't go down or there won't be major injuries.
For more baseball news, rumors and analysis, follow @EyeOnBaseball on Twitter, subscribe to the RSS feed and "like" us on Facebook.
