Joel Pineiro said he was willing to sign with the Mets this past winter. And he insists he nearly did.
“They showed interest. They showed everything,” the Angels’ righty said yesterday after flummoxing the Yankee in the Angels’ 5-3 win. “But it came down to talking with the kids and the family and it was a tough decision to make.
“The Dodgers were in there, there were a couple teams in there. Houston. It was just a matter of coming down to the end and just feeling comfortable.”
According to agent Adam Katz, Pineiro’s choice eventually came down to two finalists — the Mets and Angels. The sinkerballer went to Anaheim for two years and $16 million, while the Mets added nobody to their rotation. That isn’t looking great so far.
ANGELS PITCHER: UMPS FAVOR YANKEES
Pineiro, though, looked great yesterday. He suffocated the Yanks on just one run and five hits in seven innings, striking out seven — including Alex Rodriguez three times. In his two starts with the Angels, Pineiro is 1-1 with a 2.77 ERA.
Pineiro said when the offseason began, he classified the Mets as his most likely destination, and since he lives near Alex Cora in the winter, he spent time talking to the Met infielder about the team and the city.
“He was telling me [to come] and I was like, ‘All right, I’m just waiting for that good thing to happen and we’re ready to go,’ ” Pineiro said. “And it never came.”
Pineiro said the Mets’ contract offer was comparable, but that the Angels might have been “a little more aggressive at the end. It came down to the last moment. I said, ‘All right, it’s like Jan. 15. I need to go somewhere.’ Everything was good. I can’t say it was just this one thing why I didn’t go there.”
Katz too told The Post yesterday the Angels were a “touch more aggressive personally with him.”
“At the end of the day for the player,” Katz added, “it comes down to a surrounding circumstance analysis and he chose Los Angeles.”
Said Pineiro, “[The Mets] were there from the beginning. But at the last go, I guess, Anaheim was the one guy that said all right, let’s go to work.”
mark.hale@nypost.com