Justin Wilson

Player Data:Age: 33, B/T: L/L
Primary Stats: 23 G, 2-1, 19.2 IP, 3.66 ERA, 10.5 K/9, 4.1 BB/9, 1.373 WHIP
Advanced Stats:117 ERA+, 3.04 FIP, 0.2 bWAR, 0.5 fWAR

Free Agent: 2021
2020 Salary: $5 million

Grade: B

2020 Review

Dating back to spring training and “Summer Camp,” one of the biggest questions marks about the Mets would be how the bullpen would perform. It consisted of an array of a boom-or-bust scenarios (which ended up more bust than boom) due to questions surrounding Edwin Diaz, Jeurys Familia, and the newly acquired Dellin Betances.

However, there wasn’t really much concern nor chatter about Justin Wilson–the Mets’s best lefty out of the bullpen. And if Wilson seemed like the same pitcher in 2020 that he was in 2019, that’s because he was!

From 2019 to 2020, the lefty had a similar:

  • WHIP (1.333 in 2019 vs. 1.373 in 2020)
  • xERA (3.39 vs. 3.38)
  • xBA (.213 vs. .218)
  • xSLG (.322 vs. .323)
  • Strikeout rate (26.5% vs. 26.7%)
  • Walk rate (11.4% vs. 10.5%)
  • Hard Hit % (27.7% vs. 28.3%)
  • Average exit velocity (85.3 mph vs. 84.5 mph)

And this was all done against similar splits, too. In 2019, 34.3% of the batters Wilson faced in 2019 were lefties, compared to 34.8% in 2020.

Wilson appeared in 19.2 innings over 23 games for the Mets in 2020, giving up a total of eight earned runs (10 total). Six of the eight runs came in two appearances–a 6-5 loss to Boston on July 29, and a 5-4 win against Miami on August 26. Another of Wilson’s earned runs came on a Juan Soto home run, which is forgivable in any year, especially during Soto’s first two weeks of the 2020 season.

Overall, Wilson didn’t allow a run in 19 of his 23 appearances, but when the runs came, they came in bunches. Wilson also successfully avoided the injured list over the 60-game 2020 season after spending 67 days on the IL in 2019.

If you look back at Wilson’s 2020– or even last two years –was there a moment where you saw him coming out of the bullpen and felt queasy?

Wilson provided a sliver of confidence in the Mets’ bullpen this year, which was desperately needed at the most crucial times throughout the season.

The southpaw’s most impressive outings in 2020 came in a three-game series against the Phillies from September 15-17. After pitching scoreless innings in each of the first two games of the series, Wilson came in with a man on first and two outs with the game tied 6-6 in the bottom of the eighth.

“Running on fumes,” as Gare points out on the broadcast, Wilson walked the first two batters he faced, then got Didi Gregorious to fly out. The next half inning, Brandon Nimmo opened the frame with a home run and the Mets offense scored four runs and secured a critical series win late in the season.

Two days later, Wilson came in against Atlanta with the bases loaded and one out and probable-MVP Freddie Freeman at the plate in the top of the seventh–the Mets, familiarly, grasping onto a 3-1 lead.

Freeman grounded into a double play, and the Mets eventually won 7-2. Wilson was able to strand 13% of his inherited runners this year (the second-lowest of his career right behind his 2018 season with the Cubs), and none of them more important at the time than those three. (The Mets were still just 1.5 games out of the second Wild Card spot at the end of the game.)

While Wilson clearly pitched better against lefties than righties this year–as usual per his career–overall it was nice to see that the newly implemented three-batter rule for relievers didn’t affect Wilson’s production or usage. He had great value as a lefty reliever who can manage full innings of work.

Wilson pitched a full inning or more in 15 of his 23 appearances, showing there wasn’t an attempt to use Wilson exclusively as a “specialist” against lefties to get out of innings when the three-batter minimum didn’t apply.

All in all, Justin Wilson has been Brodie Van Wagenen’s best free agent signing, which, I know, is not a hard bar to top. Still, Wilson produced 1.5 bWAR over a season-and-a-half’s worth of outings for less than $7 million after 2020’s prorated salary, and he was one of Luis Rojas‘ most trusted sources out of the bullpen this year.

At age 33, Wilson knows what works for him: inducing soft contact by peppering batters with fastballs and cutters. Wilson continued his above-average production out of the bullpen in 2020, and I’d bet on him doing so in 2021, too.

2021 Outlook

Justin Wilson is a free agent this offseason. He would fit nice back into a Mets bullpen that is desperate for lefty pitching, with Daniel Zamora yet to prove himself a consistent lefty option and Steven Matz’s status as a bullpen piece (if he even remains on the team) in the air. He can most likely find himself a similar two-year deal that he signed with the Mets in 2019, and the money should be at or above the $5 million per year Wilson made the last two seasons.