Buck Showalter trusts his setup crew so much that his plan with the season on the line Saturday night was essentially to have Edwin Diaz set up Edwin Diaz.
San Diego’s Trent Grisham was leading off the seventh inning of a must-win wild-card Game 2 for the Mets. Grisham, among the majors’ worst hitters this year, already had homered for a second straight night from the eighth spot. So with that and the lineup guaranteed to turn over to the top, Showalter turned to Diaz to pitch in the seventh inning for the first time.
He knew that unless Diaz was incredibly economical he likely would only have the closer for the seventh and eighth innings, and hoped that someone else could navigate the bottom of San Diego’s lineup in the ninth. Diaz threw 19 pitches in a scoreless seventh and the Mets, in theory (more on this to come) blew the game open with a four-run bottom of the inning to take a 7-2 advantage.
Still, to be safe, Showalter stuck with Diaz for the middle of the lineup in the eighth — Diaz got the first two outs before being replaced by Adam Ottavino who got the inning’s final out. Then in the ninth, Showalter’s worst fears were played out when Ottavino regressed to his poor playoff history. He lost the strike zone and faith from Showalter that he could finish the assignment of not allowing five runs before recording three outs. Seth Lugo came in with the bases loaded and the tying run at the plate to finalize a 7-3 triumph that knotted the wild-card series and forced a decisive Game 3 on Sunday night.
It all emphasized how needy the Mets have been for Diaz this season. And arguably next year, too.
For you might not love the Mets setup group, but the club is facing the difficult assignment this offseason of essentially building a bullpen from scratch.
Diaz is rightfully the spotlight free agent among the relievers. But Lugo, Ottavino, Trevor May, Joely Rodriguez and Trevor Williams also are free agents (Rodriguez’s contract stipulates he is a free agent despite lacking the service time). Mychal Givens has an $8 million mutual option for 2023 that the Mets almost certainly will not pick up. Thus, the only current Met who appeared in at least 20 games for them as a reliever this year who is not a free agent this offseason is Drew Smith.
To further complicate matters, Chris Bassitt, Jacob deGrom and Taijuan Walker are all near certain to reject mutual or player options, plus the Mets have to decide whether to pick up Carlos Carrasco’s $14 million 2023 option. So the Mets will have to reconstruct a rotation around Max Scherzer. Thus, for depth and protection if nothing else, they almost certainly will have to earmark Tylor Megill and David Peterson for the rotation rather than keeping them in their current pen roles.
And just to accentuate the degree of difficulty in assembling a 2023 pen, it is not like the Mets are blessed with intriguing live arms close to the majors from within their system. Colin Holderman was traded for Daniel Vogelbach and Thomas Szapucki was impressive with the Giants after being dealt for Darin Ruf. Can Jose Bhutto and/or Bryce Montes de Jan graduate to usefulness — or perhaps Eric Orze? Billy Eppler’s baseball operations never solved the lefty relief piece in 2022. Can it do that plus unearth a diamond in the rough or two who surprise to deepen the pen?
The Mets could try to retain a few relievers beyond just Diaz. Ottavino, who grew up in Brooklyn and resides now in Westchester, has mentioned how much he has enjoyed this season. He was the Mets’ most durable, consistent setup man in 2022. But on Saturday night, Ottavino walked three, hit one and gave up a run before being bailed out by Lugo. Ottavino has faced 64 postseason batters and walked 10, hit one and surrendered five extra-base hits, including two homers.
Lugo is the second most reliable setup man. But the Mets are always concerned about Lugo’s durability as he pitches with a partial tear in his elbow that he has managed well. Givens’ option can be rejected, but the Mets can try to re-sign a Showalter favorite.
However, they go about it, the Mets are looking at having a lot of work building a pitching staff, in general, and a relief corps, in specific. They are facing a rewrite with their pen.
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