New York Mets: What’s going on with Edwin Diaz?
New York Mets relievers are pretty much all terrible
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So far this season, bullpens across baseball are sporting a 4.54 ERA, compared to a 4.10 from just last season. The league-wide average for home run to fly ball percentage has also risen from just over 12% to well over 15% in that same time span, so relievers aren’t just getting scored on more often, they look even worse doing it.
If you’ve followed baseball pretty much at all this year, you know there’s ONE significant change from last year to this year that could be leading to these patterns, and at risk of my eyes sticking in an upward position due to excessive eye-rolling, I’ll leave it alone since it’s been written about to death and back again… but you know what i’m talking about.
It’s a significant factor though, because with closers, and their ultra-specialized role, optics can play a key role in our perception of how a pitcher is doing. Any baseball fan knows that sinking feeling when they see their pitcher whip around towards the outfield, pained expression on their face as they watch the little white dot sail over the fence. It’s a bad look, and if it’s happening more often, it looks even worse.
So… What’s the deal then?
The deal is that there isn’t much of a deal.
Yeah, his defense took a significant downgrade when Diaz went to New York from Seattle, and his pitch mix might have changed a bit, but in reality, he’s more just a product of 2019 pitching, and it’s amplified due to his market (New York), the competition level of his division (NL East), and the fact that he was a key acquisition by a team that basically said “come get us” in the offseason.
Next. Kazuhisa Makita could head back to Japan. dark
I don’t believe Edwin Diaz is a worse pitcher than he has been historically, rather he is the perfect example of how the game on the diamond has changed, and how it takes a bit for us in the stands to catch up to it.