Last season, the New York Mets thought they had finally found the answer at the closer position in Edwin Diaz. The defending American League saves leader was included in the blockbuster deal with the Seattle Mariners that made Robinson Cano a Met.
It couldn’t have gone any worse for Diaz and the Mets. He not only couldn’t get batters out, he was actually losing the Mets games they had locked up. It was evident in July that Diaz was not the same pitcher the Mets traded for. David Roth of Deadspin (bow head) wrote the following on July 8:
“He has already allowed more home runs and earned runs in 37 appearances than he gave up in 73 last year, and is allowing more than twice as many hits-per-nine this year as he did last; his ERA+ has gone from 210 to 74, which is striking even if you do not understand quite how that statistic works.”
By year’s end, Diaz had long lost his closer role and set an infamous MLB record of surrendering 15 ninth-inning home runs. He ended the season with an ERA of 5.59 with seven blown saves and seven losses.
New Mets manager Carlos Beltran, who played with Diaz on the Puerto Rican team in the WBC in 2017 and faced him in he majors in the latter part of his playing career feels Diaz is salvageable. He, his new pitching coach Jeremy Hefner, bullpen coach Ricky Bones and a team of others will begin the process of fixing this very broken player.
“He’s eager to get back, and he’s eager to prove himself, and I believe, as a player, that’s the right mentality that you should have,†Beltran said as per the New York Post on Tuesday. “Not because you had a good year the year before. It doesn’t mean that you have to prove yourself. I do believe that every single year you need to show up hungry to spring training and make sure that the people see the work that you did in the offseason.â€
“We have identified some things that will help Edwin moving forward and I’m looking forward to talking to Edwin about those and working on those things right now,† added Hefner. “Not even waiting to spring training and engaging him and trying to get him down a good path right away.â€
The Mets will surely seek to add more bullpen help this offseason. The Winter Meetings are this week and you can bet GM Brodie Van Wagenen is not going to sit around hoping Diaz has a miraculous turnaround. The Mets are but to compete right now and they need a closer they can rely on.