Jeurys Familia, AJ Ramos, and Jerry Blevins will anchor the 2018 Mets bullpen. Don’t be surprised if the Mets go out and sign a big-ticket reliever, but four men does not complete a bullpen. A Mets lefty not named Jerry has been making a strong case for why he should be in the mix for a bullpen spot next season.
Josh Smoker, 28, has been extremely effective for more than a month now. Since August 11th, he has appeared in 22 games and allowed just two earned runs. In 18.0 innings, he has allowed 14 hits and struck out 24 pitching to a 1.00 ERA.
The biggest difference is that he’s throwing a lot more breaking balls and almost “pitching backwards,” meaning he establishes his curveball/slider which makes his fastball look even faster.
Another very promising number during that time frame is that while lefties have hit .244 (10-for-41) against him, righties have hit just .167 (4-for-24) against him thanks to an improved changeup. Not all lefties need to be lefty specialists; Any reliever that can hold right-handed batters to a .167 batting average is valuable.
While this is a relatively small sample size, you can point to one major adjustment that made the difference between his being effective and ineffective. If he continues to pitch well for the rest of the season, he could end up being a strong candidate to help round out the Mets bullpen in 2018.
