The bullpen doesn’t usually make headlines in December, but sometimes one arm tells you exactly where a team thinks it stands.
On Wednesday, the New York Mets made a move that was as revealing as it was necessary, signing Luke Weaver to a two-year, $22 million contract to help stabilize a relief group that has quietly been gutted over the past few days. Edwin Diaz is gone. Ryan Helsley is gone. Gregory Soto, Tyler Rogers, and a handful of other familiar late-inning options have disappeared from the depth chart. What remains is opportunity, urgency, and a front office searching for reliability.
Weaver arrives from the crosstown Yankees with a resume that is both encouraging and complicated. That duality is exactly why this signing matters.
Why the Mets Needed to Act Now
The Mets did not enter the offseason planning to patch holes around the edges. This bullpen was bleeding innings, leverage, and trust, and the exits came fast. Diaz’s departure alone removed the safety net that had defined the final three outs for years, but the cumulative losses told a deeper story. This was no longer about replacing a closer. It was about reconstructing the spine of the relief corps.
That context makes the Weaver deal easier to understand. The Mets were not chasing perfection here. They were chasing competence with upside, someone capable of handling real innings in front of Devin Williams without the moment feeling too big.
In that sense, Weaver fits the brief.
The Version of Weaver the Mets Are Betting On
If you stop his timeline at the right moment, Luke Weaver looks like one of the better bullpen stories in the American League. In 2024, he struck out 103 batters in 84 innings for the Yankees, posted a 2.89 ERA, and quietly became a late-inning weapon who missed bats at an elite level. He was not flashy, but he was consistently effective, and the numbers backed it up.
The early part of 2025 suggested that performance was no fluke. Before June, Weaver was borderline dominant. Mets insider Max Goodman laid it out cleanly: a 1.05 ERA over 25 and two-thirds innings, a 3.10 FIP, and a microscopic 0.70 WHIP before a hamstring injury shut everything down.
That injury changed the season. Weaver missed weeks, and when he returned, the sharpness was gone. Over his final 39 innings, his ERA ballooned to 5.31, his WHIP climbed to 1.23, and the margin for error evaporated. Mechanics drifted. Command wavered. Hitters stopped missing mistakes.
The Mets are not pretending that stretch did not happen. They are betting it does not define him.
Risk, Reward, and the Bullpen Reality
This is a moderate-risk signing, and pretending otherwise would miss the point. Weaver does not generate ground balls, ranking in the first percentile in ground-ball rate last season, which puts pressure on location and sequencing. Hard contact is a concern. When he misses up, the ball tends to travel.
But the upside is not theoretical. Goodman pointed out that Weaver’s strikeout rate, chase rate, and whiff rate all remain elite. Those traits do not disappear overnight, especially when injury plays such a clear role in the decline.
For the Mets, this is a calculated gamble rooted in context. They are not asking Weaver to be the bullpen savior. They are asking him to be a trusted bridge, a late-inning option who can shorten games and give Williams cleaner ninth innings.
If the Mets get the pre-injury version of Weaver, this contract looks like a win. If they get something in between, it is still a usable piece in a bullpen that needed arms, not experiments.
The Mets are betting that health restores the edge. If they are right, this signing could quietly become one of the more important moves of their offseason.
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