The 32-year-old is still on the free agent market.
With the calendar set to turn to 2025 in just a couple of days, the Mets could still use some help in their bullpen ahead of the upcoming season. And Jakob Junis, who declined his side of a mutual option for the 2025 season to become a free agent, could be a useful addition to the Mets’ staff.
Having spent the first five years of his career with the Royals and the following two years with the Giants, Junis was a free agent following the 2023 season, too. He wound up signing a one-year deal with that mutual option with the Brewers, and Milwaukee traded him to the Reds at the deadline in exchange for recent Mets pickup Frankie Montas.
Early in the 2024 season, Junis hit the injured list because of a right shoulder impingement, and he threw just 26.0 innings for the Brewers before the trade. He stayed on the mound the rest of the season, though, racking up 41.0 innings with the Reds, and in total, he had a 2.69 ERA and a 3.69 FIP at the end of the season.
As per usual, Junis worked as both a starter and a reliever during the season, and that swing-man versatility could make him particularly appealing given the makeup of the Mets’ pitching staff at the moment. With question marks in the rotation—Kodai Senga’s health, whether or not Clay Holmes will stick as a starter, and just how good Frankie Montas and Paul Blackburn will be—having a pitcher like Junis available to make some starts certainly wouldn’t hurt.
Out of the bullpen, Junis isn’t a prototypical high-leverage power arm. With a fastball that averaged 92.6 miles per hour in 2024 and a strikeout rate of 20.2 percent, he’s far from that, really, but he’s exceptional when it comes to limiting walks. In 2024, Junis had just a 3.2 percent walk rate, and since the beginning of the 2023 season, he’s walked just 4.7 percent of opposing batters.
The Mets could very well be done adding any pitchers on significant major league deals, but so long as it looks like the team has a need and these pitchers remain on the market, we’ll keep writing about potential fits. If the team were to have interest in Junis and end up signing him, though, he’d be a welcome addition to the roster.