New York Mets Bullpen

New York Mets Bullpen Solid in Tie Against Cardinals

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On day two of Spring Training, the New York Mets and St. Louis Cardinals finished in a 3-3 tie. Jake Marisnick‘s solo home run, Ryan Cordell‘s double and a J.D. Davis sacrifice fly accounted for the three Mets runs.

Like most early Spring Training games, the big league ready arms threw the first half of the game. Steven Matz threw the first inning for the Mets and allowed a leadoff home run to Harrison Bader. Matz settled in to retire the following three batters and struck out one. His much-improved charge-up looked good during his one inning of work.

Bullpen Dominance

The slimmed-down Jeurys Familia took over after Matz in the second inning. He worked around a couple of baserunners to pitch a scoreless second. Familia is back to throwing his sinker, slider, and splitter full time and featured each of them during his inning. He threw a couple of sinkers in the high 90s but mostly worked in the 93-95 range.

Brad Brach took over for the third and allowed a couple of baserunners but also struck out two. He was throwing in the high 80s, but his change-up looked in midseason form. The double Brach allowed mostly had to do with Tim Tebow playing left field. It was a tough play, but most Mets outfielders make the play.

Robert Gsellman put together a quick but eventful inning. It started with an Andres Gimenez error, followed by possible double play turned into a fielders choice, and the final batter flew out into a double play on a failed hit & run. Tyler Bashlor‘s one inning of work featured a strikeout, and his curveball was his best pitch with his velocity sitting at 93-95.

Minor league relievers finished off the rest of the game with Franklyn Kilome as the only one to allow runs. He allowed a line drive two-run homer to Edmundo Sosa, which tied the game. Velocities from most pitchers on both sides seemed lower than usual. It either had to do with pitchers still getting themselves game-ready along with the radar gun reading not playing as key a role it does in the regular season.

It was a solid day for the key Mets relievers, which will be something to build on as the first full week of games starts. We still have not seen Edwin Diaz pitch, and his Spring debut will be the most anticipated of Spring Training.

Mets’ Bullpen Plan for 2020? Standing Pat

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The New York Mets biggest issue in 2019 was their inconsistent bullpen, the one they thought they had rebuilt last offseason. The leaky pen cost them a chance at the postseason and this winter, it is widely predicted they would make that their priority.

Think again. Instead of acquiring bullpen help, they went and backfilled their starting rotation with two reclamation projects (Rick Porcello, Michael Wacha) and are now talking about in-house solutions in the pen.

The starting rotation may have lost Zack Wheeler to free agency but still has a solid core four in Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Marcus Stroman and Steven Matz. They are banking that one of the two new additions will hit and become their fifth starter. That means the Mets won’t have to promote Seth Lugo or Robert Gsellman from the bullpen, which obviously makes it sturdier.

They re-signed Brad Brach this week as well to add to the mix of Lugo, Gsellman, Justin Wilson, Edwin Diaz, Jeurys Familia and either Wacha or Porcello.

“We can bolster our bullpen by having Lugo and Gsellman now go back to the bullpen along with Brach if that’s how it shakes out in spring training,” Mets GM Brodie Van Wagenen said. “It’s a good position to be in, and we will sort of adjust on the fly in terms of what other opportunities come in.”

The Mets may still make a trade for a reliever. They have some spare parts on their roster at other positions in J.D. Davis, Jed Lowrie and Dominic Smith that teams could find interest in. There are also several free agents such as Houston’s Will Harris or the Yankees’ Dellin Betances but Van Wagenen, who has little salary flexibility may not want to go in that direction.

If you go by the rule of thumb where relievers have on alternating solid seasons, then Diaz and Familia are due bounceback seasons .

 

 

Van Wagenen being coy about Mets’ bullpen plans

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The MLB General Manager meetings are being held in Scottsdale, Arizona this week and one very popular GM is the New York Mets’ Brodie Van Wagenen.

BVW, as he is known to some, is coming off a season where his team won 86 games. Not enough to shake things up (even though manager Mickey Callaway was fired after the season) but also not good enough to qualify for the postseason.

One area Van Wagenen knows he has a bullpen issue and is hoping to solve it by adding some new names this offseason. But he’s still confident his signings from last winter are going to play off.

“I think the combination of Edwin Diaz and Jeurys Familia and Seth Lugo and Justin Wilson, we’ve got four guys that have closed games on the major league level,” Van Wagenen told Mike Puma of the NY Post.

Last week, BVW suggested that Lugo could end up in the starting rotation, a concession that he has no intention on bidding for Zach Wheeler in free agency next month.

With a rotation that is headed by Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Marcus Stroman and Steven Matz, it doesn’t appear that the Mets are shopping for a starter at the moment. That means they could be looking to snare a big name for the bullpen.

The Mets’ bullpen, particularly Diaz, was downright awful from most of the season with a save percentage of 58% and 27 blown saves that hurt the team’s bottom line. Many of those games were key losses.

The Mets missed the playoffs by three games.