Spring Training is fast approaching for Major League Baseball but with a slow-moving free-agent market, the New York Mets are still investigating ways to drastically improve the roster.

Center field remains a priority for the club after missing out on George Springer, and even with a seemingly good front end of the rotation already in place, they’ve reportedly made a significant offer to Trevor Bauer. New York did what it could to make significant additions to the bullpen for 2021 by pursuing top names like Liam Hendriks and Brad Hand, but neither of those pursuits yielded an acquisition. Signing Trevor May does add credibility to the Mets’ relief corps, while Wednesday’s news of agreeing to terms with Aaron Loup brings a much-needed lefty into the fold.

After everything that’s happened, it’s interesting to see where New York’s bullpen is landing among FanGraphs’ depth-chart projections. While the New York Yankees (4.6 fWAR) and Chicago White Sox (4.1) are head-and-shoulders above everyone else, the Mets are currently tied with the Tampa Bay Rays with the third-highest projected fWAR (3.6).

If you’re thinking this is a movie we’ve seen before, that’s because we absolutely have.

Consistently Not Fulfilling Expectations 

Prior to the 2017 season, ZiPS projected New York’s bullpen to post a cumulative fWAR of 3.0. That number jumped up to 4.0 prior to the 2018 campaign, before climbing up even higher to 5.6 prior to 2019. Before everything fell apart in March and we were still expecting a full regular season in 2020, ZiPS once again projected the Mets to have one of the league’s best bullpens with a 5.0 cumulative fWAR. FanGraphs’ Steamer projections agreed with this, tabbing New York as the National League’s best-projected group of relievers.

As we can see, projection systems have put high expectations on the Mets’ bullpen in recent years, and as we’re well aware of, they’ve consistently underperformed over the past four seasons. Here’s a look at how they’ve ranked within the league when it comes to cumulative fWAR and ERA:

If we’re looking for the silver lining when staring at this progression, the Mets are at least moving in the right direction for both categories. But still, seeing these numbers and knowing how much they’ve underperformed during this time makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little bit.

At the moment, only two Mets relievers are projected to accumulate more than 1.0 fWAR in 2021: May (1.1) and Edwin Diaz (1.6). There are five other hurlers projected to be in the black, including Miguel Castro (0.3), Dellin Betances (0.3), Jeurys Familia (0.1), Loup (0.2), and Seth Lugo (0.1).

Lugo is an interesting case here because his projection seems a bit light despite being pinned for 40-plus innings out of the bullpen. He posted 1.6 fWAR in 2018 and 2.3 in 2019 as a nearly-exclusive reliever, so if he’s back in that role and doesn’t yo-yo between there and the rotation, one would imagine he’ll be more productive than that.

A Staple of Recent Mets Playoff Squads

When looking back at the Mets’ last three playoff teams (2006, 2015, and 2016), they shared one similarity throughout — an effective bullpen. Here’s a look at how the relief corps ranked in cumulative fWAR and ERA during each of these three seasons:

The MLB rank for each category is a little all over the place, but the sheer results speak for themselves. Within the last four seasons, none of the bullpens could muster more than 1.0 cumulative fWAR, while none during these playoff years were below 3.0. And even if we take the highest bullpen ERA from the table immediately above, it’s still more than a full run below the best bullpen ERA produced between 2017 and 2020.

This is obviously not the only thing that needs to happen for a team to morph from a pretender to a contender overnight, but it’s clear how an effective bullpen impacts the Mets when everything else is seemingly firing on all cylinders. Thinking ahead to 2021, New York is already expected to have one of the more productive starting rotations in baseball, and the team’s offense should be above average. The key will be to hold onto late leads more often than not once the ball is handed over to the bullpen, which is something that’s been very hit-or-miss in recent years.

An NL East Difference Maker?

The National League East is likely going to be a fight from Opening Day until the final out of the regular-season finale. At the time of this writing, FanGraphs is projecting for three of the five teams to have a winning record: the Mets (.569 winning percentage), the Atlanta Braves (.533), and the Washington Nationals (.513). While the Philadelphia Phillies (.485) and Miami Marlins (.441) aren’t a part of that group, it’s not as if they’re too far off, either.

So, with this in mind, every slight advantage is going to be huge as these clubs battle on a daily basis. Having the best bullpen to call upon consistently would be huge for anybody. Using FanGraphs’ depth-chart projections, the Mets bullpen is easily expected to be the best — the Braves currently check-in at 12th (2.7 fWAR), the Phillies and Nationals (2.0 each) are hanging out in the middle of the league, and Miami ranks 25th (1.0).

Once again, seeing these bullpen projections and the Mets being toward the top isn’t anything new. What would be new, though, is watching this group actually fulfill these preseason expectations through the 2021 season. That would be cool.