Jared Diamond of The Wall Street Journal, pointed out a staggering statistic a few days ago. The Mets opened the season 10-20 in one-run games, finishing at 26-29. After that horrible beginning of the season, they improved to 16-9 in one-run games down the stretch. It’s no surprise that the turnaround occurred around the time that Jenrry Mejia was installed as the team’s closer and Jeurys Familia became the everyday setup man.
At the start of the 2014 season the Mets bullpen looked very different. Especially on Opening Day. Jose Valverde was there to lend support to Bobby Parnell and Kyle Farnsworth was called up to replace him the day after his injury. None of those pitchers would throw more than 21 innings this season for the Mets.
“The idea of signing the Valverdes and Farnsworths was to give us a safety net, but not stunt the growth of some of our younger guys who we thought would be more capable. We didn’t really hit on those guys,” Alderson said about the offseason signings.
Instead, Mejia and Familia took over. They were joined by Vic Black, Buddy Carlyle, Josh Edgin and Carlos Torres, who led the bullpen in innings pitched.
Speaking about the bullpen as a whole early in the year, Alderson said:
“I have to believe the bullpen had something to do with those one-run losses.” It’s obvious that if the bullpen looked better early, the team would not have been in the hole they were coming out of April and May. As Diamond points out, the big change happened in mid-May and they never looked back.
For the first time since arriving in New York, Alderson won’t have to worry about the bullpen during the offseason. Barring a trade or injury, there will be four capable closer types and a number of role players starting the season in the bullpen this Spring.
