Mets need to add both quality and quantity to the bullpen

There were 87 relievers last year in MLB to throw at least 60 IP. If they were distributed equally, all but three clubs would have three relievers meet this threshold. The 2024 Mets did not have a single bullpen arm toss 60 innings. Reed Garrett had 57.1 IP to lead the club. That total was the 109^th-most innings tossed by a reliever last season.

Injuries and ineffectiveness kept the Mets from having a reliever crack 60 innings in 2024. Garrett, despite leading the team’s relievers in innings, missed a month last year with an elbow injury. The injury questions around Garrett, Dedniel Nunez and Sean Reid-Foley make assembling the 2025 pen a difficult task for David Stearns. If those pitchers are healthy, they’re likely to top 60 IP and provide good results, too. But if they’re unable to stay off the IL then next year’s pen will likely have a repeat of the 2024 season, where the Mets seemingly made two or more bullpen moves every week.

The Phillies had four relievers amass at least 60 innings in 2024 and three of them posted ERAs of 2.29 or lower. Those four relievers combined for 253.2 IP with a 2.59 ERA. The top four Mets relievers in innings last season – Edwin Diaz, Garrett, Adam Ottavino and Danny Young – combined for 204.2 IP and a 4.00 ERA. That’s a significant deficit in both quantity and quality that the Mets have to make up ground with in 2025.

Further complicating matters for the pen will be the still-unknown detail of how the club will handle the workload for Kodai Senga. Will they try to keep him pitching with at least five days of rest in every outing? If so, that will require at least a swingman to cover starts, meaning that the pen will frequently feature only seven relievers instead of eight.

Last year, the average MLB squad received 592.2 innings pitched from their relievers. The Mets actually had the fifth-fewest innings in the league from their pen, with 549.2 IP. A decent part of the reason their innings were so low was that they did not use an opener. If the Mets look for Senga to pitch with extra rest, chances are that they will use an opener at least some of the time next season.

While they didn’t use an opener in 2024, the Mets regularly asked their relievers to get seven or more outs. But instead of having one dedicated long man in the pen, the Mets cycled thru several relievers in this role, including Jose Butto (3x), Garrett (2X), Adrian Houser (7X) and Nunez (3X). Will they look for one person to primarily fill this role, perhaps Paul Blackburn?

It’s long been my belief that a bullpen should have several pitchers capable of going two or more innings, twice a week. It doesn’t mean that they have to do this each and every week – just that they’re available to do that, if needed. Part of the problem for the Mets last year in this regard is that when a pitcher proved capable of pitching well in multiple innings, they tended to use them in shorter, higher-leverage spots, instead.

Part of that was not having a reliable set-up man, something which hopefully Stearns will attempt to address in free agency.

It’s hard for a manager to run a bullpen. But it’s hard for a GM/PoBO to assemble a bullpen, too. Relievers are notoriously fickle. Many of them are converted starters. If they had been good starters, they wouldn’t have been converted in the first place. Also, it’s easier to put up a good season of 60 IP than it is to do the same over 150 IP. Just because a reliever was good in one 60-inning stretch doesn’t mean he’s guaranteed to be good in the next 60-inning stretch, too.

The GM/PoBO has to have a strategy, a guiding principle when it comes to constructing a bullpen. We know that Billy Eppler thought the way to do that was to collect a bunch of pitchers with options and ride the hot hand. But we still don’t know what Stearns’ philosophy will be. Last year, he was focused on low-cost relievers and that didn’t work out too good for the club.

My opinion is that Stearns will have to sink more money into the pen than he did a season ago, when his biggest move was to re-sign Ottavino to a $4.5 million contract. The Mets need at least one reliable eighth-inning man. And some will argue for a high-quality lefty, too. How much will Stearns be willing to sink into the pen? It’s easy to focus on spending money at the top of the free agent market in hitters and starting pitching. But the Mets will need to allocate resources for a better bullpen, too.