Reese Kaplan -- Between Starters and the Closer Who's in the Middle?

It seems that the Mets have been searching for a reliable bullpen almost since the Tom Seaver days.  Lots and lots of people have come and pitched effectively at times, but consistency has been a losing battle most of the time.  

Even when you had an other worldly campaign from Edwin Diaz in 2022, for the most parts Mets fans during his 2019, 2020 and 2021 seasons were ready to hoist former GM Brodie Van Wagenen like the tail end of a game of hangman for having made that deal.  (The fact that Jared Kelenic has not done much of anything did take the sting out quite a bit, as did the DFA of Robinson Cano).  

Today, however, is not about the closer.  It's pretty much a unanimous sentiment that of the 13 potentially departing free agents this year, Edwin Diaz has to be priority number one, ahead of both Jacob deGrom and Brandon Nimmo.  No, the discussion now is about who else will share the support roles in the bullpen leading up to what everyone hopes is a long and productive Mets career for Mr. Diaz.

If you think back to many other Mets teams in the past, there were always reliable arms available to set up for the closer.  I've oft mentioned Jeff Innis whose career was cut short by injury.  A quick look at the numbers indicate a guy who in his last three seasons appeared in 69, 76 and 67 games respectively.  

For his solely Mets career he was a rookie in 1987 at age 24 and finished up pitching in the majors after that final season of 1993.  During that period the side arming Innis wasn't a strikeout pitcher, but finished his big league career with a 3.05 ERA while saving a grand total of 5 games during a 7 year career.  

Now to some extent the Mets got another glimpse of that type of pitching from now free agent Seth Lugo who has had a similar 7-year career with the Mets.  Lugo started a little later at age 26 and will be turning 32 as he starts his 2023 season wherever it happens to be.  Lugo split his time between starting and relieving, much more competent and valuable in the latter role than the former.  

He's racked up a 3.48 lifetime ERA and routinely struck out better than 1 per inning pitched while walking very few.  Losing a Lugo type is a big void on the number of innings he handled which ranged from a high of 101.1 IP to a low of 46.1 (leaving out the abbreviated 2020 season).  

In an earlier article I advocated that the Mets take a look at the long history of Mychal Givens' strong production for other teams before his initial difficulties in New York.  He's had eight years in the league with a virtually identical record to Seth Lugo.  

His Mets career has only been 19 games long but his ERA jumped by two full runs for the 101 win team.  If you leave out his brief tenure in New York, he owns a 3.40 ERA with a terrific WHIP.  I'm not saying he's better than Lugo, but he's cut from the same cloth, has no expressed desire to be a starting pitcher and may be the kind of pitcher the Mets need to set up for Diaz.

Of course, there are others who floated in and out of the locker room this past season and during the few prior years.  It often seemed that the front office was inclined not to view the role of the middle reliever with much sustained value as they often picked up the AAAA types who logged an almost equal amount of major and minor league appearances, or who were recovering from bouts of injury and had not yet revived whatever worth they once had earlier in their careers.  

Billy Eppler has been quite vocal about how to support the offense with high OBP players who put the ball into play and make the work for opposing pitchers that much more difficult.  What we haven't heard is a corresponding statement about the pitching side of the agenda for the new Eppler-led Mets front office.  What are the Mets doing to cultivate long term bullpen solutions?  

We did see a glimpse of Bryce Montes de Oca last year, but the man is already 27 and has a big difficulty getting the ball over the plate no matter how hard he throws.  Drew Smith looked solid for most of his Mets career when he's been healthy enough to pitch, but the Syracuse shuttle has not been nearly as kind to most of the others.  

The Met have seen failures from established veterans like Trevor May just as they have from fringe players like Joely Rodriguez.  There simply doesn't seem to be as much clarity in how the team is going to give its starting pitchers and closer the in-between support that they both need.