Reese Kaplan -- Firestarters -- Mets' Pen Epically Bad

Part of the job of anyone in a management capacity is planning and part of it is to take corrective action when the best laid plans don’t unfold as had been expected.  When Brodie Van Wagenen spent his off-season fortifying the roster, bullpen issues were front and center.  

He added the AL Saves leader in Edwin Diaz, left handed (albeit erratic) Justin Wilson and brought back former closer Jeurys Familia.  In addition he signed a few folks to minor league contracts that looked like more than the average depth deals, including former All Star Hector Santiago and fellow lefty Luis Avilan. 

Well, anyone who has had the misfortune of watching the games this season has seen that nearly every one of these moves has blown up in the team’s face.  

Diaz has had his awesome moments but lately he's succumbed to the same malady plaguing the rest of the staff when it comes to blowing games.  Justin Wilson has not “garonteed” anything but more time on the sidelines to eat crawfish.  Jeurys Familia is being told to rub dirt on his Bennett Lesion.  Luis Avilan is just now beginning a rehab assignment.  Only Hector Santiago remained healthy, though highly ineffective.

 

Just how bad has the pen been?  Well, I suggest you keep an airsick bag nearby before reading any further as the club not surprisingly leads the league in blown saves.  

Some of these issues are the manager’s doing by stubbornly refusing to insert his closer in game-on-the-line situations unless they coincidentally happen to occur when he would qualify to get a save.  More of it, however, is the result of poor execution by the pitchers themselves.  Both the pitching coach and bullpen coach were made ceremonial scapegoats for the ineptitude. 

First, let’s look at the current bullpen.  After Edwin Diaz you have Seth Lugo and Robert Gsellman, two pitchers with maddening inconsistency (and in Lugo’s case, a duct-taped arm).  On the surface that’s not too bad a start, but then it gets real ugly real fast.  

The next group includes former starter Chris Flexen, swingman Wilmer Font, recently pounded Brooks Pounders, a guy making me yearn for his traded resource, Kevin Plawecki’s mound savvy, Walker Lockett, and the last hope for anything worthwhile from the great selloff of 2017, Stephen Nogosek. 

Others who have served their time in the bullpen purgatory include Tim Peterson, Jacob Rhame, Corey Oswalt, Daniel Zamora, Paul Sewald, Tyler Bashlor and Ryan O’Rourke.  Collectively this group has contributed a lot of gasoline when asked to put out fires.  They have logged in aggregate over 72 innings, provided a devilishly bad ERA of 6.66 and staked the opposition to nearly 2 runners per inning pitched.

Now the primary group of relievers must be decidedly better, right?  Well, compared to the has-beens in group 2, perhaps.  Compared to other teams and probably it’s understandable why the pen is such a mess.  They have a collective ERA of 4.90 and a 1.39 WHIP over a total of 162 innings.  

About the only saving grace has been the relatively speaking low number of walks compared to the dispatched-to-the-minors set.  They have yielded about 3.67 per 9 innings, not great but not the stuff of bad legends, either.  The others – ouch!  That demoted group has provided the opposition with 6.4 walks per 9 IP. 

Now that octogenarian Phil Regan is on board as pitching coach and Ricky Bones is back in the bullpen will things change?  Thus far the answer is a resounding no, but it’s only been about a week.  The problem isn’t the coaches as much as it is the front office who thinks that guys with career ERAs of 6.09 and 8.93 (Font and Pounders respectively) are the collective answer.  

Then when they pitch to ERAs of 5.26 and 9.00, no one should be surprised, particularly the folks in the front office.  Please let the selloff begin.  It’s about the only thing that will sustain interest in this season other than Pete Alonso’s homers, Jeff McNeil’s batting average and Jacob deGrom’s starts.