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Monday is MLB’s self-imposed deadline to strike a deal for a new Collective Bargaining Agreement so the 2022 regular season can begin as scheduled on March 31st. After a week of meeting every day in Florida, the chances of that happening are looking slim, no matter what some league insiders are reporting. There are still a few hours left to get a deal done before the proverbial buzzer, so I suppose we can hold out some hope, even though it’s not looking good.

While we do that, I figured it was a good idea to finish a little series I began a couple of weeks ago. After all, these projections may not mean anything soon if games start getting canceled. I first looked at the New York Mets’ position-player projections for the upcoming season and compared them to the organization’s past winning teams since 1997. I followed that by doing the same exercise for the starting rotation, so naturally, it’s now time to finish things up with the bullpen.

This is an area of the Mets’ roster that has been a thorn in their side in recent years, but the 2021 bullpen proved to be more reliable, as their collective 4.4 fWAR ranked 10th in baseball. Instead of tallying up 2.0-plus and 3.0-plus fWAR seasons, we’ll bump it down to 0.5 and 1.0 to see how past bullpens from winning teams compare to New York’s current projections.

Current Projections for 2022 Bullpen

As a unit, ZiPS is projecting the Mets’ bullpen to rack up 4.7 fWAR. Here’s what some of the main contributors to that area of the roster are getting projected to produce, along with how many innings pitched is included in each equation:

While those fWAR projections add up to the 4.7 mentioned above, there are a couple of caveats to mention here. In the projections for Lugo, Williams, and Reid-Foley, there are a significant number of starts baked into it (like at least 12 for each). So, their fWAR projections aren’t necessarily exclusive to the bullpen, which we’ll keep in mind for the remainder of this exercise.

Even if we completely take them out of the equation, the Mets are projected to have at least three guys with 0.5-plus fWAR in 2022: Castro and May, along with Díaz, who is the lone reliever with a projection above 1.0. Although the 2021 squad didn’t finish with a winning record, New York’s bullpen boasted three hurlers in this club: May (0.5 fWAR), Díaz (2.0 fWAR), and Aaron Loup (1.5 fWAR).

So let’s look back at winning Mets seasons over the past 25 years to see how impactful the bullpen performance has been on their overall results.

Comparing This to Past Winning Seasons

As mentioned previously, the Mets have produced 12 different winning seasons since 1997. Outside of 2001 (82-80) and 2005 (83-79), they’ve registered at least 86 wins the other 10 times, which includes eight seasons of 88-plus victories.

Going back through the individual reliever production for each of these squads, I tallied up the number of players with 30-plus innings pitched who accumulated at least 0.5 fWAR that year. I then took it a step further to see how many of those performances resulted in at least 1.0 fWAR. Here are the results.

There are a few things to call out here. That 1999 season is an outlier in Mets history for many reasons, and this occasion is no different. While they only had one reliever above 1.0 fWAR, it was the best relief pitcher season in franchise history. This was by Armando Benitez (really), as he accumulated 3.1 fWAR during his first season in Queens.

After seeing how lackluster the rotation performance was overall, it’s not surprising to see the 2006 Mets had the most players in each of these categories of all New York’s recent winning clubs. They rode an elite offense and bullpen on their way to winning the NL East for the first time since 1988.

The 2016 campaign also stands out because it’s one of just four times the Mets had multiple relievers post greater than a 1.0 fWAR. In this instance, Addison Reed (2.4) and Jeurys Familia (2.1) both finished above 2.0.

Looking Ahead to The Upcoming Season

While having multiple hurlers post at least 1.0 fWAR in a single season out of the Mets’ bullpen doesn’t appear essential, multiple dependable arms need to be ready to contribute. In each of the years where New York reached the postseason (1999, 2000, 2006, 2015, 2016), there were at least two relievers with 0.5-plus fWAR recorded. And if we take 2000 out of the equation, all the others had at least three pitchers reach that benchmark.

It was nice to see the Mets have multiple arms in the bullpen that were dependable more times than not in 2021, especially since that hasn’t necessarily been a luxury for the club in recent years. We also know that an effective bullpen is essential in October, as “bullpenning” has become all the rage. Sure, that’d include some of the starters not in the playoff rotation. But when there’s a tight spot late in games and big outs are needed, manager Buck Showalter must have dudes at the ready that don’t make him feel sick with worry when they take the mound.

The top portion of New York’s bullpen looks decent heading into the season. As with many teams this winter, though, they haven’t had a chance to supplement the depth of their rosters because of the lockout. It’ll be interesting to see the directions in which the Mets head to put the finishing touches on their offseason, whenever they’re actually allowed to do so.