Blevins rejoins Mets on Minors deal

NEW YORK -- A prominent member of the last bullpen that Sandy Alderson constructed is on his way back to Flushing.

Left-handed specialist Jerry Blevins, a staple of the Mets’ relief corps from 2015-18, signed a Minor League deal to return to the team, the club announced on Monday. The contract will be worth $1.25 million if Blevins makes the Mets’ big league roster, per a source, and includes up to $750,000 in incentives.

The Mets also signed RHP Jerad Eickhoff, LHP Tom Windle and INF Wilfredo Tovar to Minor League contracts with invites to Major League Spring Training.

Blevins expressed his excitement on Twitter after the news initially broke.

Although a broken arm limited Blevins to five innings in his first year with the Mets, he rebounded to post a 2.87 ERA with 121 strikeouts over 91 innings from 2016-17. Blevins was particularly effective against left-handed hitters, holding them to a .213 average with six extra-base hits combined in those two seasons. Following a less productive 2018 campaign, Blevins bounced from the A’s to the Braves to the Giants, who released him shortly after COVID-19 forced a shutdown to Spring Training across MLB.

All told, Blevins has produced a 3.54 ERA over 13 seasons, with opposing lefties slashing .213/.270/.313 against him for his career.

There is opportunity for the 37-year-old Blevins in the Mets’ bullpen, as the team recently lost Justin Wilson to free agency and non-tendered another veteran left-hander, Chasen Shreve. That leaves Daniel Zamora as the only lefty reliever on the Mets’ 40-man roster, though Steve Matz and Thomas Szapucki -- the club’s No. 8 prospect, per MLB Pipeline -- could also receive looks out of the bullpen.

Since the Giants released him earlier this year, Blevins has served as a part-time analyst on SNY’s studio programming.