It has been reported that the Mets are scouting lefty-reliever Brian Matusz. The 28-year-old starter turned reliever has one year left of team control, as a Super Two earner, and is a replacement candidate for Josh Edgin, who was lost for the season due to Tommy John surgery.
For Sandy Alderson to acquire Matusz, he would obviously need to trade something as well as be wiling to pay the $3.2 million owed to him in 2015 plus the arbitration figure that would come due in 2016. Whether he has the financial flexibility to add even a small amount of salary remains in question.
Leaving the finances aside, we can look at how Matusz compares to Edgin in terms of a suitable replacement as the top lefty in the Mets’ bullpen.
I wrote a few days ago about where the Mets would miss Edgin the most, as a lefty specialist. His role last year was essentially to get a tough left-handed hitter out in a crucial situation. He did so glowingly. Looking at Matusz performance in the same role for Baltimore last season, we see that he was also quite good.
The two pitchers had almost the exact same number of high leverage situations against left-handed batters, and while Edgin was better at keeping men off base, Matusz kept the ball in the ballpark, opposed to Edgin who was burned for two hurtful home runs.
Of course, a reliever’s value goes beyond high leverage situations. There are a lot of innings to consume throughout a season, and for a young Mets staff who will be watching their innings limits, it is important to find a bullpen arm that can help ease the load. For Matusz, as a former starter, he is built for endurance, pitching in 102.2 innings of relief over the past two seasons, almost double the output from Edgin.
While Edgin had impressive numbers last season, he did so in only 27.1 innings of work. Matusz pitched to a higher ERA, but found similar success in striking batters out, and overall, was an effective reliever.
The loss of Josh Edgin may not hurt the Mets as much as some have feared. ZiPS and Steamer projected him as a below replacement-level pitcher in 2015, while Matusz is expected to produce similar results to last season, worth about 0.3 fWAR. Put simply, it’s possible the Mets can find similar production to Edgin from one of their internal and cost-effective options, either Scott Rice, Dario Alvarez, Jack Leathersich, or Rule 5 pick Sean Gilmartin. If they trade for Matusz, they would be doing so to gain improvement over a low-cost Edgin replacement.
The question for Sandy Alderson, and ownership, is whether an added $3.2 million this year and at least $3 million more next year in payroll, plus the cost in assets traded to acquire him, are worth the value Matusz can provide as a possible upgrade over the internal replacements for Edgin.
Statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs. Follow me on Twitter @OverWhitestone.
Another original article from Metsmerized Online!
