Prospective Mets’ closer Edwin Diaz appeared in his third spring training contest Saturday night and fired another scoreless outing, racking up two strikeouts in the process.
Diaz, 27 this month, has gotten off to a solid start this preseason, albeit in a small sample size. In three games, the right-hander has recorded five strikeouts.
After coming over to New York in the 2018-19 offseason in what is looking to be an overall bust for the Mets to say the least, Diaz had a rough first year in Queens that saw him pitch to a 5.59 ERA, 4.51 FIP, 3.07 xFIP and was worth just 0.1 fWAR.
The Puerto Rico native rebounded in the shortened 2020 season, however, with a 1.75 ERA, 2.18 FIP, 2.29 xFIP and had 0.9 fWAR.
A big change for Diaz was his ability to raise his opposing exit velocity, hard hit percentage and barrel rate from the year prior. If he can keep that up, combined with his already excellent whiff rate, fastball velocity and spin, strikeout percentage and xWOBA, he will be in good position to help the Mets bullpen in 2021.
“I think last season was really important for me,” Diaz said through an interpreter last month. “I had a tremendous season last year. I’m not the one who makes the decisions, but I know my mindset in my preparation is to be the closer of this team.”
There are a lot of question marks in the Mets’ bullpen going into the season, especially at the back end with Jeurys Familia and Dellin Betances, so having Diaz provide stability would be a huge boost to finish off games.
“The stuff is tremendous, electric,” Mets’ manager Luis Rojas said last month. “He’s a guy we have full trust in and he should be one of those guys that pitches at the end of the game, if not the guy that gets the most chances pitching at the end of the game.”
