The Mets’s bullpen was nothing short of atrocious last summer. The group posted a horrendous ERA of 4.99 on their way to blowing 27 saves. The biggest culprit of the bullpen’s floundering was the main piece in the deal that sent the No.6 prospect in our preseason top 100 list to Seattle. Edwin Diaz was brought in to be the shutdown closer that shored up the New York Mets’s shaky bullpen. However, Diaz was quite literally the opposite in 2019. The 24 year old posted a 2-7 record with a 5.59 ERA and seven blown saves.
So what makes me so confident that a bullpen consisting of predominantly the same cast of characters will improve so drastically?
Diaz’s metrics show that he was not nearly as bad as that number portrays.
So what caused the poor performance of Edwin Diaz in 2019? Well, it was the combination of poorly located sliders and loads of bad luck. The newly acquired closer was tagged with a BABIP of .377 last year, the third highest mark in all of baseball. When you pair that with the third highest FB/HR ratio in baseball (26.8%), two things can be inferred. 1. Edwin Diaz allowed a lot of runs in 2019 and 2. He is due to regress to the mean in 2020. We already know the first part of that is true. And here is why the second part is true.
Despite the high BABIP and FB/HR ratio, Diaz was still able to post a 3.03 pCRA and a 2.63 SIERA. Additionally, the right hander still fanned a career high 39 percent of opponents in his first year in blue and orange - even without his slider being reliable. That 39 percent K-rate supplanted him in the top 10 of the league.
Diaz also posted a solid K-BB% of 30.3%. This made him a part of a unique group.
Only 53 times in the history of the sport has a reliever ended the season with a K-BB% of 30% percent or higher.
Here is a look at the worst ERAs of that bunch:
3. Nick Anderson: 3.32
2. Rafael Betancourt: 3.61
1. Edwin Diaz: 5.59
His ERA in 2019 was almost two full points higher than the next worse season of pitchers with the same K-BB rate. That does not even seem possible.
Here is another interesting note I found on Edwin Diaz. Here is a look at his opponents’ launch angle by month on his slider.
What do you notice? A huge dip from July to August. The righty seemed to have figured something out in that time period.
Now take a look at this chart.
What you see is a massive spike in breaking balls OUT of the strike zone for Edwin Diaz between July and August.
It is striking how the two charts are reflections of each other. Rate of breaking balls out of the strike zone increases, launch angles decrease. Makes sense.
Now take a look at his opponents’ launch angle from August to September.
Opponents started to elevate his slider again late in the year.
And here is why.
Diaz began throwing more strikes with his slider in that span. Usually it is a good thing to throw strikes with your breaking ball as a pitcher, but not when those strikes are right in the heart of the plate. Here is a look at the location of all of Diaz’s sliders that were put in play for a base hit last year.
What you will notice is a whole lot of red on the heat map right in the middle of the zone.
It seems rudimentary, but the key for Diaz in 2019 will be to keep the breaking ball down and on the corners.
Jeurys Familia
Jeurys Familia was another offseason addition of GM, Brodie Van Wagen, that faltered during the season.
The big right-hander was brought back on a three-year, $30 million deal after being shipped to Oakland at the deadline one season prior.
Familia had been a reliable closer for the Mets dating back to 2015 when he assumed the role. But much like his counterpart Edwin Diaz, Familia fell asleep at the wheel last year. The 30 year old posted a 15+ BB% and saw his K rate fall to 23% from above 27% at its peak. What is important to note with that is that generally, higher walk rates can be fixed by fine tuning mechanics. Now 30 pounds lighter and with a new pitching regime at the helm, Jeurys Familia should have no problem overhauling his delivery and returning to his dominant self. In fact, Familia still was his dominant self in some aspects last season, particularly with his splitter.
Here is a look at the quality of his splitter last season.
This has always been his wipe out pitch that he pairs with a nasty sinking fastball that sits in the high 9’s. His secondary offering only conceded a .235 xwOBA last year and posted a 34.1% whiff rate - an excellent mark.
In the brief look at Jeurys Familia that we have had in Spring Training and Summer Camp, we have seen some promising signs. In his appearance against the Yankees last weekend, he was successfully able to generate weak contact and induce groundballs with his splitter and sinking fastball.
To add to his arsenal, in addition to his sinker, slider and splitter, Jeurys Familia has also been toying with a curveball in Summer Camp. It is not often that you see a reliever show four different pitches in an outing, but it is certainly helpful for Familia to have these alternate weapons to turn to if he is having trouble getting the feel for a pitch.
It is also worth noting that last year Familia posted a groundball rate of over 50%, something he has not done since 2017.
The combination of Familia and Diaz in the back end of the bullpen has the opportunity to be nightmare fuel for the MLB East this season.
Justin Wilson
One of the more underrated left-handed relievers in the game over the last few seasons has been Justin Wilson. The lefty has been quietly posting stellar seasons for numerous different ball clubs for years. This year, with the new MLB rules, Justin Wilson will have the chance to showcase his value even further. In 2019 right handed opponents could only muster an OPS of .687 and a wOBA of .296 against the southpaw. With all relievers now having to face a minimum of three batters per appearance, Justin Wilson certainly has the inside lane to the 7th inning role.
Additionally, the former Pirate, Yankee, Tiger, and Cub was able to limit hard contact better than 98 percent of the league last year, all the while raising his groundball rate back over 50 percent. Wilson is a key piece of this bullpen as the only left-hander, and his health is imperative for the bullpen’s success.
He missed some time last year due to elbow inflammation, but after his IL stint, he was brilliant. Prior to the elbow injury, the California native carried a 21.4 K%, after his return from the IL, he bolstered that strikeout rate to 28.2%
Expect to see Justin Wilson in the 7th inning to bridge the gap to the back end combination of Seth Lugo, Jeurys Familia, Edwin Diaz, and Dellin Betances.
Seth Lugo
On the topic of under appreciated bullpen arms, no one is more relevant than Seth Lugo. The Puerto Rican right-hander has made it clear that he still wants a spot in the starting rotation. However, the Mets have declined and Lugo has assumed the bullpen role more than just quite nicely.
Since transitioning to the bullpen, Lugo has brought with him a fastball with increased velocity (94.5 mph) from his days as a starter (91.9 mph). But what really makes Lugo effective is his 12-6 curveball that measures to be the best in the league. The deuce yielded an average exit velo of 87.4 mph and a groundball rate close to 60%. Those metrics came paired with a .086 ISO and a mere .217 wOBA. Opponents had trouble finding the barrel against Lugo, and it is not hard to see why. Lugo’s hammer has an average RPM of 3,285 aiding in its producing a 32.9 K-BB%.
To show just how dominant Seth Lugo was, here is a look at his Baseball Savant page.
He dominated opponents in all facets of the game. He generated strikeouts at an elite level, avoided hard contact, and rarely allowed anyone to reach base.
New Mets manager, Luis Rojas, has not instated a closer yet and has said that it can be a closer by committee in New York. It is not hard to imagine a scenario where the Mets deploy Seth Lugo for two inning saves like the Brewers have done with their fire baller, Josh Hader. This gives the other arms that have had a checkered medical history a spell. Additionally, if any of the members of the bullpen go through a stretch like Diaz did last summer, having multiple options to close out games spares them of high leverage appearances.
Dellin Betances
Even with former All-Star turned liability - Edwin Diaz - in the pen, Dellin Betances still remains the biggest question mark of the group. The New York native and former Bronx Bomber was limited to only two-thirds of an inning last year after shoulder and lat injuries kept him sidelined until September when he tore his Achilles in his only appearance of the season.
We know what Betances is capable of providing to this Mets team. Since 2014, Dellin Betances has recorded more strikeouts than any other reliever who has not started a game in that span. His 609 punchouts leave him in some pretty good company. The other relievers to record 500 strikeouts without starting a game since 2014 are Aroldis Chapman (559), Kenley Jansen (556), and Andrew Miller (536).
From 2014-2018, Betances recorded five consecutive 100-K seasons and maintained the fourth highest career strikeout rate in history during that span.
That is what the Mets are hoping to see - a healthy Betances with unmatched strikeout potential. The ballclub hopes he can return to his mid 2010s form. Watching Betances in Spring Training, he was only sitting around 90-91 mph on the gun. In Summer Camp, he was able to sit more consistently at 92-93 mph. In the Mets’s exhibition game against the Yankees, the big right-hander even dialed it up to 95 mph once against Giancarlo Stanton.
The combination of these five high power arms will lead the Mets to the not only the playoffs, but to the best bullpen ERA in the league.