Laura Albanese of Newsday reports Mets general manager Brodie Van Wagenen is confident closer Edwin Diaz “will bounce back [in 2020] because he’s healthy and he’s made mechanical adjustments.”
While Van Wagenen did not specify what ailed Diaz, shortly after he was acquired in the trade with the Seattle Mariners, we learned Diaz had bone spurs in his pitching elbow. While it did not land him on the injured list during the 2019 season, there was speculation it affected not just how he was used but also his ability to get batters out.
In 2019, Diaz would post career worsts in ERA, hits, runs, earned runs, homers, ERA+, FIP, WHIP, H/9, and HR/9. On the home run point, Diaz allowed as many homers as he did the previous two years combined.
As noted by Van Wagenen, Diaz’s issues leading to his career worst season were not just health, but they were also mechanical. The hope there is with new pitching coach Jeremy Hefner Diaz can return to being the dominant closer he was in Seattle.
Hefner and Diaz are already working on getting Diaz back to being Diaz. Hefner has traveled to Puerto Rico to work with the Mets closer. The hope for the Mets is that this will lead to Diaz not only reducing his home rate rate but also improving his control. If so, we can expect Diaz to look like the closer the Mets thought they were acquiring last offseason.
