Drew Smith couldn’t help but to get emotional when he suffered his season-ending injury last year.
Smith was the longest-tenured Met at the time, but as an impending free agent facing an extended recovery ahead from his second Tommy John surgery, his future with the club was a bit of an unknown.
However, the organization made it clear right away that they were interested in a reunion, and the two sides were able to come to an agreement later in the offseason on a one-year pact with a club option for the 2026 season.
“It means a lot,” Smith said Monday in Port St. Lucie. “I’ve been through a couple of injuries since I’ve been here. It’s the only organization I’ve known, so thankfully we started having conversations not long after the injury happened.
“There’s nowhere else I’d want to be. I talked to a couple of other teams, but from the get-go this is where I wanted to be. They made it clear that they wanted me to be back, so things felt really good.”
Smith will now continue his recovery with a training staff he is comfortable and familiar with.
The right-hander has been progressing well, as he began playing catch up to 60-feet last week, but he will continue taking things slow as he works through a roughly 20-week throwing program before he’s potentially able to get back on a mound.
Everything has gone smoothly so far, and Smith says as long as it stays that way, the ideal timeline is to be able to return to the team by the end of the season.
“That’s the goal,” he said. “We’ll see where I’m at by then end of the year. Everything is so unpredictable with TJ rehab and any rehab in general, but if I could come back by the end of the year that would definitely be the best-case scenario.”
Even if he is out for the majority of the year, Smith is eager to be back around this group.
Having been through so many highs and lows with the organization since making his big-league debut back in 2018, the 31-year-old is certainly excited about all of the additions they made in free agency this offseason.
“The team looks great,” he said. “The additions show that Steve [Cohen] and David [Stearns] are committed to building a winning team for a long time, which is another reason I wanted to come back. Being here for so long I’ve been through some of the tougher times. To see where we’re at now, I feel like it’s a huge step and obviously it’s very exciting for the future.”