Mets Bullpen: Fishing and Stomping
This post continues our Depth Chart Discussions. In an effort to suss out every team, we’ve divided them into four parts (infield, outfield, bullpen, and rotation) and will continue to break them down for you over the next few weeks. You can find the Depth Chart Discussion posts gathered here.
Closer/Setup Men:
Fishing for a closer?
Draft Jenrry Mejia and you may feel like doing this:
Jenrry Mejia. So pumped. pic.twitter.com/iy8HR5yrZu
— MLB GIFS (@MLBGIFs) July 26, 2014
Since his arrival to the majors at age 20, Mejia and/or his defense has not done a good job preventing balls in play from becoming hits. He has a career .330 BABIP. Still Mejia was extremely effective last year once he transitioned to the full-time closer. Despite back issues and a sports hernia, as a reliever, he had a 2.72 ERA and a top 50 contact rate for relievers over 40 IP.
From a repertoire perspective, Mejia has the stuff to remain successful: two elite pitches (Curve and Slider) as well as a Sinker (despite low usage) – all of which induce a ton of whiffs. His Slider last year incurred misses over a standard deviation from the mean Slider (almost 43% of the time). His Curve was almost two standard deviations better than the average Curve (also a 43% whiff/swing rate). Next year, he should ensure more grounders as well.
Mejia’s Changeup is used to induce grounders and boy does it. According to BP’s PITCHf/x Leaderboard, Mejia’s Change had the 13th best gounder-per-balls-in-play rate for relievers last year (~70%). Unfortunately, based on usage (75 total), it did not show up in my Reliever Arsenal Score. If this and the Sinker were both included, his ranking of 108 would sky rocket into the top 30.
Speaking of arsenal scores (and writing Mets bullpen-related content), Jeurys Familia wound up in the top ten thanks to the 13th best Slider (just above Ken Giles for reference), 23rd best Sinker, which induces grounders 60% of the time and an above average fastball that strolls in around 97.5 MPH per BP’s PITCHf/x Leaderboard.
Still, Bobby Parnell’s return looms and Terry Collins perhaps already penciled him in to be the closer when he returns. Parnell just wants to be 100% by playoffs and knows the situation is in good hands in the interim.
The fantasy baseball saves situation gets even cloudier whenever Collins refers to Vic Black as another option in conjunction with Mejia and Familia. It’s a good old fashion fantasy baseball saves sh*t-show as a I like to call it.
Fortunately, for the Mets, it should be an overall good situation. If we look at the bullpen cores in the NL East and how they faired last year (for relievers with > 30 IP), the Mets wound up with the best overall ERA between Familia, Mejia, Carlos Torres, Vic Black, Buddy Carlyle and Daisuke Matsuzaka. Their combined 2.69 ERA finished just ahead of the Marlins’ 2.71 ERA. However, from a closer/set-up skills perspective (combined K-BB%, Contact and Swinging-Strike% combined, IFFB% and GB% weighted z-scores), both Mejia and Familia finish after Ken Giles, Craig Kimbrel, Jonathan Papelbon, Mike Dunn and Steve Cishek. They finished ahead of Drew Storen, Jason Grilli, A.J. Ramos and Casey Janssen though.
Storen’s job is secure with the loss of Tyler Clippard and Rafael Soriano. Ken Giles is a most own if Papelbon gets moved. I would prefer to own Mejia over Familia, Black and even Parnell. The Mets need some excitement.
Based on RotoChamp’s projections, I have Mejia ranked 25th overall, but with the associated cloudiness, I could see Andrew Miller, Brett Cecil, and Ken Giles among others sneaking ahead of him depending on save situations. All four of these guys are Closer assets if they consume the role.
Also available out of the bullpen:
- Victor Black has as much strikeout potential as anyone in the Mets’ bullpen as we can see from his elite minor league rates and a Curveball that induced more whiffs per swing than Craig Kimbrel’s. Luck last year in the three major categories though (HR/FB, IFFB% and BABIP) hid possible platoon and walk issues. He should be a devastating option against right-handed hitters.
- Thanks to his Cutter and Curve, Carlos Torres is as or more effective versus lefties and is therefore an effective stop-gap prior to specialists, set-up men and closers coming in.
- So long as his late-season elbow issues are behind him, Josh Edgin is another asset with excellent swinging-strike and groundball potential, but it seems like Collins has typecasted him into a lefty specialist. He made my rather exclusive Closer Through Outcomes Leaderboard, but that came with facing over twice as many lefties.
The Mets rotation combined with growth from the bullpen should keep the Mets in the pennant race if the offense can muster runs.
Daniel Schwartz contributes for RotoGraphs when he's not selling industry leading thermal packaging. You can follow him on twitter @RotoBanter
Don’t forget Mejia started 7 games last year, giving him SP eligibility in some leagues. This could make him very valuable indeed, like brett Myers a few years ago.
Mejia has a pretty considerable injury history, and that isn’t being emphasized quite enough here. He is just no sure thing to remain healthy which is why this Mets fan believes chaining him to Familia is the smart move. I don’t have faith Parnell will be throwing anywhere near 100MPH when he returns, which means it’s doubtful he resumes the closer role.
From what I remember, there were people in the Mets organization who were afraid that Mejia was an injury risk as a starter and was better suited to shorter appearances because of his delivery. This assessment was made years ago and has been remarkably prescient. I’ve attached an article from 2011 that mentions this.
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/jenrry-mejia-complete-mcl-tear-elbow-surgery-recommended-mets-pitching-prospect-article-1.141717
People coming back from TJ actually tend to have a slight increase in velocity. I’m more concerned about how it will affect his control.
You’re forgetting that when Parnell was flourishing in the bullpen, he’d long given up the 100 mph fastball he had ’cause he couldn’t control it for the life of him. He slowed things down and suddenly had far better control, so his numbers went up.
Don’t forget to talk about holds in your articles. Piecing this together, I’m trying to value Parnell, Meija, and Familia from the perspective of an actual good fantasy league that does saves + holds as a category.
Who do you think will be the top set up man if Parnell moves into the closer roll?
Mejia is ahead of Familia on the depth chart, and unless he proves ineffective will remain there. I think Terry’s telling Parnell “you don’t lose your job due to injury” but knowing he won’t be ready to start the season, if Mejia starts lights-out, it would be hard for me to take him out of the role and give it to a guy coming off a whole missed year. I would ease him in with low leverage work and then decide based on who looks better, not a preconceived notion. That being said, I see when Parnell comes back it’s him in the 7th, Fam in the 8th and Mejia 9th. If Parnell earns the closer job back, Mejia drops to the top setup role.
Hold? saves?closer?what decade are we in?
I think the bullpen should be managed by innings. 80 innings for an elite reliever. 75 for a good one 70 for an ok one.Collins needs to think outside of the box. PLAN on using his relievers at set intervals. Don’t use them two days in a row. It was stupid to send Dice K down last year when he was only a little bit worse than mejia (for the fifth spot). Instead, they should have told Dice K that he is pitching every third day two or three innings. a pace for 150-180 innings a year . Isn’t that better than him being in the minors?
Similarly the starters should be PLANNED to pitch 200 innings a year.30 starts times seven innings is 210. The pace should be even so they get to the end strong.How many times do we need to see a guy throw lots of pitches one start and then suffer the next two?
Did he say “pennant race?” Huh?!
Give me one good reason they’re not a playoff team this year.