Tom Brennan - BUILDING A SUPERIOR 2019 METS BULLPEN

Tom Brennan - BUILDING A SUPERIOR 2019 METS BULLPEN

Building a thriving and successful bullpen is a lot like stocking shelves of a successful store for the holidays.  You need really good stuff, complementary stuff, plenty of it, and enough so that you don’t run out and have to restock with inferior products.

Last year's Mets bullpen, to be tactful, sucked, by and large.  

Close to baseball's bottom.  

In a Saks Fifth Avenue 2019, it needs to be close to baseball's top.

It therefore is truly excellent that we acquired the great Edwin Diaz to close, and now will have a reunion with the very solid Jeurys Familia. The Mets still have Seth Lugo and Rob Gsellman too. So far, so very good.

But the average major league pen (excluding experimental, pen-crazy Tampa Bay) tossed 575 relief innings last year, with the Mets close to that median at 546 innings.

So, let's figure a normal season of 550 to 575 relief innings for 2019.  How do we make it Saks Fifth Avenue product and not Dollar Tree stuff?

The 4 Mets mentioned above are a great start – they threw between 72 and 80 relief innings last year, for a total of 303 innings, so let's figure the Mets have another 250 to 275 bullpen innings to fill in 2019.  

That's a lot left to fill.

So, who should throw those innings? Let's look first at our incumbents, then look at who we'd need to add from the outside.

We want successful guys only - after all, we want to win a World Series.  

And the 15 pen guys who had a pen ERA of over 5.00 last year for the Mets last year allowed roughly 180 runs in 225 innings, an atrocious amalgamation of meltdown that would keep any MLB team out of the playoffs. 

Simply, that putridity(is that a word?) cannot be repeated.

So...who else we got, bro'?

Pretty definite dudes to throw Mets pen innings in 2019 in my opinion are Drew Smith, Daniel Zamora, Tyler Bashlor, and Bobby Wahl. I could picture those 4 giving the Mets a combined 125 to 150 innings in 2019.   In 2018, all 4 split time between the minors and majors, threw 74 innings, and allowed 36 runs.  

Not bad.  All 4 were getting their major league feet wet in 2018. I hope for modest improvement in 2019 from this foursome.

But more is needed...at least 100 innings more. More like 125-150 innings. 

And a lefty presence is needed with Jerry Blevins gone; Blevins gave the Mets 40 innings last year, but the dude was an asset during his tenure here,  with a tip of the hat to him for going 14-4 as a Met.

My vote for lefty to replace Jerry B? 

Andrew Miller, to give the Mets 50-60 innings of hopefully superior lefty relief.

Which beings us to the filler and cushion segment of our pen. 

The final 50 or so bullpen innings that the pen will need, if all goes reasonably well. 

I would consider Eric Hanhold, Tim Peterson, Corey Oswalt, and possibly Jacob Rhame for that. Maybe even Drew Gagnon. Hopefully, however many innings this group would be used for, their collective pen ERA would be 5.00 or less.  And they would all be inexpensive when Mr. Brodie is wheeling and dealing elsewhere.

This latter group would be acceptable for 10% of the pen's innings, and most likely represent a much higher performance floor than last year's back end of the bullpen.

And be ready to add another functional pen arm not listed above as needed. 

Because the last thing the Mets need is any substandard pen innings from someone really in over their head at the major league level. 

Too many guys like that last season.  

Using guys like that is how you lose pennants.

Using real bona fide bullpen talent is the way you win pennants.