A big arm is joining the Mets’ bullpen mix for this season and another is returning from the injured list, but what is lacking in overall high-end stuff might be compensated for, at least partially, by the unit’s diversity.
Newly acquired Shintaro Fujinami brings 100-mph heat — the same neighborhood in which Edwin Diaz resides — to the equation.
But the Mets’ bullpen will largely be defined by different looks.
“In a perfect world, you certainly want everybody throwing 100 mph with a knee-buckling breaking ball,” former Mets pitcher and current SNY analyst Ron Darling said. “The alternative to that is if you just picture a clock and you can cover all the numbers on the clock and then you have a good bullpen, and I think that’s what the Mets have.
“There’s nothing worse than every guy you bring in is the same: fastball/sinker/slider or high fastball/breaking ball. You do have everything with this group.”
The diversity is perhaps best seen in the Mets’ lefty options, Brooks Raley and Jake Diekman.
Raley relies primarily on his sweeper and Diekman on his four-seam fastball. Diekman also features a sidearm delivery.
Last season, Raley threw his sweeper 36.3 percent of the time, according to Statcast, and opponents hit only .174 against the pitch. The sinker and cutter were his second and third pitches.
Diekman threw his four-seam fastball 57.6 percent of the time — he averaged 95.4 mph with the pitch — and used a sweeper and changeup as his second and third pitches.
From the right side, Drew Smith and Adam Ottavino have pitched in high-leverage situations for the Mets, but there is a contrast between the two.
Smith deploys a four-seamer as his primary weapon, whereas Ottavino relies on a sinker.
Smith has struggled to maintain consistency throughout his career, and Darling suggested that throwing too many varieties of off-speed pitches has been detrimental to the right-hander.
“I’ve found him to be in-between on his breaking ball,” Darling said. “It’s not quite a curve, not quite a sweeper or slider, and for a reliever, a jack of all trades and master of none is no good. I’d rather him be a master of those two pitches, a fastball and a nasty breaking ball, as opposed to having four pitches. I don’t think he needs four pitches.”
Ottavino’s inconsistency last season often stemmed from base runners: He was among the easiest pitchers in the major leagues to steal bases against.
“I don’t think he has a lot of weapons to stop the running game, but I think what’s happened — and this is something to think about for all pitchers — is the runners have gotten into their minds that when the pitch clock is running down, they figure the pitcher is not going to throw to first once it gets to three [seconds] or so, and they’re just taking off,” Darling said.
“If I was a pitcher trying to employ a new weapon, I would say, ‘I’m going to throw over there with two seconds remaining.’ And maybe that’s something Adam can do. Also, changing his times to the plate, hold the ball sometimes, go quickly other times and maybe develop a balk move — a little move that is very subtle that he would only use a few times a year — and that is usually from a little twitch of that left, front knee, and then throw the ball to first. If you only use it a few times a year when you absolutely have it, it could work.”
Fujinami pitched to a 7.18 ERA last season with the A’s and Orioles, but the Mets were willing to take a $3.5 million gamble on his four-seam fastball, which averaged 98.4 mph and ranked in MLB’s 97th percentile. But the right-hander also walked 45 batters in 79 innings.
Though Diaz ranked in the 99th percentile in four-seam fastball velocity at 99.1 mph in 2022 — he missed all of last season rehabbing from surgery to repair a torn patellar tendon in his right knee — his slider was actually his primary pitch. Diaz threw the slider 58.1 percent of the time. He threw his four-seamer 41.9 percent of the time.
According to Fangraphs’ ZiPS projections, Diaz is the only reliever among the Mets’ likely top six expected to have a walk rate below 10 percent.
Diekman (14.9 percent) and Fujinami (14.4 percent) are atop the list. It means the Mets will likely have to endure a fair amount of traffic on the bases.
“The fungibility of bullpens is very hard to map out, even if you have the statistical numbers,” Darling said. “Year to year, I would hate to be a betting man on who’s going to have a big year in the bullpen and who’s not.
“Edwin Diaz coming back and if he’s healthy, that changes the bullpen. That makes that bullpen so much mightier than last year.”
Spring and their steps
Finally, the prospect of a normal spring training.
The last time that happened was 2019, when a rookie named Pete Alonso was vowing to crack the Mets’ Opening Day roster and the team still hadn’t completed refurbishments on Clover Park. At the time, the major league club was still using a minor-league clubhouse behind the third-base dugout.
The ensuing spring training, in the team’s updated facilities, was curtailed by the pandemic. A year later, with COVID restrictions still in place, the Grapefruit League schedule was shortened.
The lockout two years ago meant a late start to a condensed spring training, and last March, the World Baseball Classic removed players from their clubs for extended stretches.
Mets pitchers and catchers are required to report by Monday, with the first workout scheduled for two days later.
Here’s to a happy, healthy and normal spring training.
Want to catch a game? The Mets schedule with links to buy tickets can be found here.
Waiting on lab results
This will be the first spring in which the Mets’ pitching lab is fully operational.
The lab, which opened last June, will allow Mets officials to collect biomechanical data on their pitchers that previously wasn’t proprietary information.
The Mets plan to utilize the lab mostly early and late in camp, allowing for a database to be built on their pitchers.
The challenge will be finding a window late in camp for relievers — who, unlike starting pitchers, generally don’t have side sessions between game appearances — to utilize the lab.
