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Have the Mets done enough to improve the relief corps?
According to Fangraphs, the
Mets’ bullpen was the 13th in baseball last year by fWAR. On one hand, this sounds insane to fans who sat and watched as their nails got bitten away multiple times per week when things went wrong. However, along with thinking their manager doesn’t know what they’re doing, just about every baseball fan watches their team’s bullpen with horror at times. Bullpens are, by their very nature, mercurial and feature performances that are incredibly hard to predict and replicate year to year.
That said, the Mets’ bullpen to start 2025 doesn’t look too different from the bullpen at the end of 2024. It still has Edwin Díaz in the closer role for his sixth season (seventh year, thank you freak WBC injury) with the Mets. Back are 2024 mainstays Reed Garrett, Danny Young, and José Buttó, as is trade deadline acquisition Ryne Stanek. Spot starter/spinal leakage victim Paul Blackburn has been told that he will start the year as a reliever.
As for new additions, the Mets brought in A.J. Minter, who was placed on the IL in August of last year by Atlanta in order to undergo hip surgery. While not official as of publication, it appears that Minter will make the roster, having pitched twice in three days this past weekend, which was the final test of his hip.
And then there is Max Kranick. Though claimed off waivers before last season from the Pirates, Kranick did not pitch for the big league club last season, and he spent much of the season working with the Mets on his pitching repertoire. The Mets felt confident enough in the changes they made to put him on a postseason roster last season. Kranick has been the talk of pitch data Twitter this spring, with folks marveling at the changes that the Mets made. Our Lukas Vlahos wrote about
Kranick’s evolution earlier this month.
That is the best guess for what the bullpen makeup will look like to start the season, with Dedniel Nuñez, last year’s breakout bullpen arm already relegated to Triple-A as he continues to come back from an elbow flexor injury. Before Nuñez, Chris Devenski, Génesis Cabrera, and Jose Urena were the last three potential bullpen arms cut from the spring roster, and all will likely start the year in Triple-A.
The only other pitcher that seems to have an outside chance at the bullpen, especially if the Mets want Minter to start the season on the IL to ease him back in, is Huascar Brazobán. Brazobán, acquired from the Marlins at the trade deadline last year, had an up and down half-season, but like seemingly every other pitcher in the Mets system, seems to have had his repertoire tweaked by the pitching lab and has shown more consistency this spring in a limited sample size, though his control still remains an issue.
Even though the bullpen looks similar to last year’s, there are some reasons for optimism in regards to their improvement. While taking into full account the ‘mercurial and hard to predict’ caveat, the Mets have retained all of their best relievers from 2024, starting the year with a more established relief corps.
Last year, Danny Young appeared in 42 games for the Mets, eclipsing his 11 career appearances pre-dating his time in New York. His season was up and down, in part because the Mets had a dearth of left-handed relievers on the roster, and so Young was put into some high leverage situations that his experience and talent level didn’t necessarily warrant. With A.J. Minter in the fold, Young will be hopefully used in more appropriate situations.
As for Minter, he has been a rock-solid left-handed reliever for the Braves, putting up 5.6 bWAR over his career. His career 10.9 K/9 rate and low home run rates make him a really nice component to this bullpen. He’s 31, so age may become a factor at some point, but with another lefty on the roster, he shouldn’t get too overtaxed.
Ryne Stanek had a rough first appearance as a Met, but after giving up seven earned runs in his first give appearances, Stanek gave up just four runs in the subsequent 12 in the regular season. In the post season, Stanek pitched in all three series, and looked quite good in all, aside from a rough appearance in Game 6 of the NLCS where he didn’t record a single out and gave up a walk, a fielder’s choice, and a single.
Plus, his wife
bakes bread for his teammates. How can this guy not succeed with karma like that?
Reed Garrett had an unbelievable start to his 2024 season, where he had an ERA of under 1.00 in his first 17 appearances. Eventually, Garrett came back to earth, but as
our Allison McCague pointed out, the addition of a sweeper pushed Garrett into a higher echelon last season and, if he can introduce an effective fastball, he will re-affirm his role as a reliable late inning reliever for the Mets.
When the Mets turned to José Buttó before last season, it was primarily in a spot start situation, but with his minor league options gone, Buttó will, at least for now, as he was as of July last year, be a reliever. Once Buttó transitioned to the bullpen, his ERA dropped nearly half a run, and he proved adept at going for multiple innings. While Buttó still walks too many batters (4.6/9), his strikeout rate has remained fairly consistent in both roles, and he limits the long ball.
For other multiple innings situations, Paul Blackburn will likely be the reliever turned to, at least until a spot in the rotation opens up. Blackburn, acquired last year from Oakland for Kade Morris, throws a six pitch mix and made it through the roster crunch of the offseason to get another shot with the club. While a freak injury limited his innings, clearly David Stearns and the Mets saw something that they wanted to work with, both in trading for him and tendering him a contract this season.
The success of the bullpen in 2025, as it has since his first year with the Mets, relies on Edwin Díaz. Díaz is entering his sixth season as a Met and, almost comically, the years have alternated between elite and merely good. If that trend continues, 2025 will be an elite year, following up on his absolutely fantastic 2022 season, his missed 2023 season, and his good, but unspectacular, 2024.
This is a completely unscientific approach, but there are some signs that Díaz could be in for a big year in 2025. The most obvious data point is that he is now more than a full two seasons removed from the mound celebration that wrecked his knee in the
World Baseball Classic. With a more established relief corps, as well as viable depth in Triple A (whose bullpen, according to
Fangraphs’ Roster Resources, is 16 deep), Díaz will hopefully have some more help. As our Dave Capobianco wrote earlier this year, if Díaz’s
slider is working, things will be looking good for the closer.
Of those names in Triple-A, there are a few that stand out and may make an impact sooner than later. Names like Anthony Gose, Grant Hartwig, Yacksel Rios, and Tyler Zuber all either showed some interesting stuff this spring, or appeared to have returned to a past performance level after a dip. The Mets have built a deep, strong relief corps.
But, like all bullpens, it is still mostly a mystery. There is a chance that this is the best bullpen of the last seven or eight seasons for the Mets. It isn’t quite as likely that it is the worst, but it wouldn’t totally shock me if the pitching lab ‘fixes’ weren’t quite so permanent, Díaz falters a bit, and the roster looks quite different come July 1.
However, tomorrow is Opening Day, and so for the next 24 hours or so, hope springs eternal. Let’s hope that the Mets did enough fro the bullpen this offseason. Let’s hope that Díaz returns to his elite status. Let’s hope.
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