The Mets offseason is more or less over with the addition of Jason Vargas.

Ideally, I would like to see one more additions to the bullpen. The old baseball adage is that failed starters are pretty good relievers, and there are examples that can back that up.

Off the top of my head, Wade Davis, Andrew Miller, Jeurys Familia, Aroldis Chapman, Dellin Betances, and Archie Bradley come to mind. Another is Brandon Morrow.

Morrow was an injury prone starter who signed a minor league deal with the Dodgers last offseason. He went on to have a dominant 2017 season and cashed in on that season. So can the Mets find their “Brandon Morrow?” Let’s dig into some numbers and take a look at some options.

Ubaldo Jimenez

Ubaldo Jimenez’s slider still gets above average movement on it, as it ranks 188 out of 522 in terms of spin rate at 2,417 revolutions per minute. He also ranked 91 out of 345 in terms of generating spin rate on his curveball. Jimenez is that guy who will always have those few seasons of dominance as a reason for someone to take a shot on him.

Jesse Chavez

Jesse Chavez was with the Angels last season and was mostly a starter but moved to the bullpen towards the end of the season and he showed some true promise. He racked up a 12.04 K/9, 1.82 BB/9, and a 3.20 FIP as a reliever.

The bad news was he had a bad 5.84 ERA in that time, but the 3.20 FIP suggests he had some bad luck in that department. From Aug. 1 to the end of the season, Chavez had a .268 xwOBA against him, good for 130th out of 601 pitchers in that time frame.

Chavez’s fastball ranked 187 out of 725 in terms of spin rate (2,335 RPM) and his slider ranked pretty high as well.

His velocity after moving to the bullpen creeped into the 93 MPH range and it’s conceivable it could increase if he signs on and trains like a reliever. I would sign this guy to a minor league deal right now.

Clay Buchholz 

2017 was a lost season for the former All-Star Clay Buchholz, who broke his forearm in his second start of the season.

The previous season wasn’t particularly great for Buchholz either as he pitched to 4.78 ERA and 5.06 FIP. Despite that, he managed to post some decent velocity as he averaged about 93 MPH on his fastball and 89 MPH on his cutter, which is pretty good for a starting pitcher.

The cutter ranked 38th out of 191 in terms of spin rate at 2,421 RPM. The stuff is there and at this point, he’s probably trying to prove himself once again and maybe the Mets can let him show that as a reliever.

Francisco Liriano 

There really isn’t much too this one other than the fact Francisco Liriano is a lefty and he throws hard.

He had pretty bad peripherals in both the bullpen and rotation during the 2017 season. He did post a 2.28 FIP in September, a month of after adjusting to pitch in the bullpen.

The only issue is that was only in 5.2 innings pitched, so the sample is too small to think he made a sudden adjustment. The interesting thing was his jump in velocity. After averaging about 92 MPH as a starter, he averaged 94 as a reliever. Towards September, he had some games where he averaged 95 and one where he averaged 96.

My Suggestion:

Sign Jesse Chavez. He looks like the most promising and also bring in Ubaldo Jimenez. If (and I mean this as a huge if), Chavez is able to continue building on his 2017 success in the bullpen or Jimenez finds a thing or two, then I’d be very happy with our bullpen.

Jeurys Familia, AJ Ramos, Anthony Swarzak, Jerry Blevins, Zack Wheeler, Paul Sewald, Jamie Callahan, and Jimenez/Chavez would be a downright nasty group of arms.