Manager Terry Collins tells Jamal Collier of MLB.com that he is not overly concerned that his relievers are going through a “dead arm” period as the Mets begin the final week of Spring Training., but he has been bothered by it the last few days.
Collins said he has noticed some diminished velocities from a few of his relievers, but believes this is the sort of fatigue that is pervasive in all MLB camps at this point in time.
“We’ve still got a number of games to go,” Collins said. “But again, it could be that there is that stage where, every camp in baseball, there is a stage where these guys are a little tired of throwing. They throw every day, play catch every day, and you give them a couple of days off and all of a sudden their arms can bounce back.”
Among the relievers that Collins could be referring to are Jim Henderson, Antonio Bastardo and the team’s closer Jeurys Familia whose velocity has been sitting around 92-94 mph over his last two appearances as opposed to his regular 94-97 mph range.
“It’s bothered me just a little bit watching the last couple of games where stuff just isn’t as crisp as it needs to be,” he said.
“The sink’s not there right now,” Collins told Marc Carig of Newsday. “A week ago, he was unhittable. But the only thing I have to go on is that we’ve seen this in the past out of some guys. It reaches a part of camp where they just need to catch their breath a little bit.”
But as Carig pointed out, this is exactly where Familia was a year ago in Spring Training with a week to go before Opening Day and we all know how dominating he was once the season started.
