Yankees lose Luis Severino to extremely ironic new foe on one-year deal

If Dellin Betances signing with the Mets, then immediately posing with a Christmas Tree didn't feel weird enough, welcome to Part II of this very specific genre of odd Yankees vibes!

Luis Severino's 2023 season was the most important of his career, given the leash on his long-term extension was expiring into a cloud of Uncertainty Mist. Sevy was a vaunted Yankees prospect and veritable ace from mid-2017 through mid-2018, but missed nearly the entire 2019 season with a shoulder injury after inking a below-market deal to buy out his final arbitration year. 2020 was a mess; Severino tore his UCL, then the world descended into COVID madness and everyone kind of forgot.

2022 represented a return to form, despite some disagreements over the finer points of the baseball calendar; Severino made 19 starts and threw 102 innings in all, posting a 3.18 ERA and striking out 112. Unfortunately for the righty, everything clattered to the turf the next season when he had to prove his strides had been sustainable. In all, he put up a 6.65 ERA in 18 starts. He was borderline unusable in July; he progressed to completely unusable in August. It was deflating for all parties involved. It felt like the end of the Baby Bombers Era, Aaron Judge's re-signing be damned. It was, without redemption, a mess.

And so, of course, given a chance at a bounce-back contract, Severino somehow found his way to the franchise best known for taking "calculated" risks three years past a player's expiration date -- and all the better if they're former Yankees. According to Mark Feinsand, the right-hander is nearing a deal with the Mets, and Yankee fans are nearing a resulting deal with schädenfreude.

Former Yankees righty Luis Severino leaves for Mets

Per Jeff Passan, the deal is just one year (as expected) for $13 million. A multi-year commitment wasn't just foolish. It was completely unfeasible. Now, Severino will try to find himself once again under ... perhaps the second-biggest microscope in baseball. Eek.

Severino's 102 innings in 2022 is the most, by far, that he's posted since that '18 season, when some of the muscular chemistry in his shoulder changed along the way and he was never the same. Sevy has gone through every possible injury concern the past five seasons, from terrifying groin pulls to oblique disasters to shoulder putty. When he's on, every Yankee fan knows how menacing that can look, and how explosive his strikeout screams are at their peak. But it's been a half-decade, and every start (unfortunately) has felt closer to ending Severino's career than extending it.

But, hey, it's not our money. And it's not Yoshinobu Yamamoto's, either.