Heading into this season, FanGraphs projected the New York Mets’ bullpen to be one of baseball’s best, also signifying a huge jump from the 2018 version. Outside of Edwin Diaz (who isn’t his typical self yet, either), the relief corps hasn’t been nearly as strong as initially expected through the first 2.5 weeks.
Prior to Monday night’s game against the Philadelphia Phillies, Mickey Callaway‘s bullpen had produced -0.6 fWAR and 6.50 ERA — both among the league’s worst teams. One of New York’s relievers that needs to right the ship in a hurry is Jeurys Familia.
Familia didn’t mind giving up closing when returning to Flushing, but there still seems to be an adjustment going on. Judging performance based on early-season statistics is hard because of the smaller sample size — that’s especially true for relievers — but Familia has struggled to a 5.87 ERA and 1.83 WHIP in 7.2 innings, which has led to -0.2 fWAR.
Strikeouts Are There, But The Walks
After watching his strikeouts per nine innings rate crest above 10.00 for the first time in his career last season, Familia is doing more of the same in 2019. That number is all the way up to 11.74, which susses out to a 27.0% strikeout rate — both of which would either be single-season career highs or close to it if he can sustain that pace moving forward.
The only problem? He’s pairing it with way too many walks and (already) an uncharacteristic number of home runs allowed. Familia’s 16.2% walk rate would be a career-worst mark if the season ended today, and that makes his swing-and-miss numbers look not nearly as appealing as before. What’s interesting is that while his zone percentage (rate at which he throws balls in the strike zone) is about four percentage points lower than last year (46.2% in ’18 and 42.1% so far in ’19), his first-pitch strike rate has increased by nearly five percentage points. So the problem isn’t getting ahead of hitters, it’s staying ahead and getting the job done.
Batted-Ball Trends
While control has been an issue for Familia in recent years, homers typically haven’t been. He’s already surrendered two dingers in just 7.2 innings, which doesn’t seem like a huge problem, but it’s just unusual for him.
Last season Familia gave up only three homers, and if we combine the homers he’s allowed since the start of 2016, that number is just five. At first glance, the right-hander’s batted-ball profile doesn’t look drastically different (in a bad way) than what he put together in 2018, either.
| Year | LD% | GB% | FB% | Soft% | Hard% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 20.7% | 46.3% | 33.0% | 22.2% | 28.6% |
| 2019 | 5.0% | 60.0% | 35.0% | 15.0% | 40.0% |
There’s a noticeable change in soft-hit rate and hard-hit rate thus far, but with a line-drive rate that low and a ground-ball rate significantly elevated, one would imagine that’s not a huge deal. However, what’s not pictured above is the change in Familia’s infield-fly rate — that number was 11.3% last year (and 15.4% in ’17) but is currently at 0.0%.
Pitch Mix Changes
Throughout his career, Familia has relied pretty heavily on his fastball, and most notably, his sinker. His dependence on that pitch has gone down considerably since posting a career-high 82.0% fastball usage in 2017.
| Year | FB% | SL% | SF% |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 82.0% | 15.6% | 2.4% |
| 2018 | 68.3% | 28.4% | 3.3% |
| 2019 | 49.3% | 32.2% | 18.4% |
Outside of the steady decline in fastball usage, we can see the huge rise in Familia’s splitter usage early on. The results have been there, too — opposing hitters have mustered a 60 wRC+ and .250 wOBA with a 0.0% walk rate and 42.9% strikeout rate.
Despite the drop in frequency, Familia is still throwing his sinker more than any other pitch, and it hasn’t been working well for him up until this point. He’s tossed that offering 60 times, with opposing hitters posting a 166 wRC+ and .417 wOBA (.182/.438/.545 line) against it, along with a 31.3% walk rate and 12.5% strikeout rate.
Although his overall ground-ball rate is up, it’s not because of his sinker — that pitch has produced a 37.5% ground-ball rate and 50.0% fly-ball rate in the season’s first two-plus weeks (62.3% and 17.0% career rates, respectively).
This pitch is just catching too much of the plate right now. Courtesy of Brooks Baseball, here’s the horizontal location of Familia’s sinker on a month-by-month basis since the start of 2018:
And then, here’s a look at the vertical location of his sinker using the same parameters:
As everyone (including myself) has said a number of times, the season is still young. However, for a team built upon above-average starting pitching, it’s important to have a capable bullpen in tow. The thought was to have Familia and Diaz locking down the eighth and ninth innings to shorten games by a great amount, which would allow Callaway to use Robert Gsellman and Seth Lugo in other high-leverage situations.
This blueprint has been more fantasy than reality at this point, but let’s hope Familia finds the feel for his sinker and gets things back on track in short order.
