Edwin Diaz Could Be Bullpen's Glue

Mets reliever still has plenty of allure

It feels like no matter what he does, Edwin Diaz’s name will always be associated with the means by which he arrived in Flushing.

The 2021 season could very well afford him the opportunity to change that narrative — at least until you-know-who starts making an impact at the major-league level.

Former New York Mets general manager Brodie Van Wagenen’s legendary blunder of trading away a potential generational talent in Jarred Kelenic for an overpaid, PED-using Robinson Cano and a rising relief star in Diaz was spun as “come get us” to the fans.

Most knew better at the time — you never mortgage the future on a whim and a gamble — but were reserved to hoping for the best.

Spoiler alert: it didn’t pan out. Or at least it hasn’t yet.

Cano’s bloated contract is off the Mets’ books this season, but only because he failed his second performance-enhancing drug test and was suspended for the 2021 season.

He showed flashes of his then-en-route-to-Cooperstown self in 2020, but, until further notice, that stretch will be chalked up as a PED-aided mirage.

Gotta wonder if Cano ever gets the chance to swing that one back his way. Doubt it, but anywho…

Diaz’s horrific debut season in Queens only magnified the error of the Mets’ ways, but the 26-year-old right-hander remains a fulcrum in New York’s bullpen for the foreseeable future. Gotta keep moving forward.

In 2019, Diaz pitched to an unsightly 5.59 ERA (seventh-worst among MLB relievers), allowing 2.33 home runs per nine innings (most in MLB) and a 48.1% hard-hit rate — third-highest in baseball, per FanGraphs.

Sure, his 15.36 strikeouts per nine innings were good for third-best in the majors. But what good is that if every other facet of his game was wholly ineffective?

It’s not. Naturally, changes had to be made. And the only way to go was up.

The 2020 season — even in its truncated form — presented Diaz the opportunity to get himself back on track and, for the most part, he did so in spades.

Over 26 appearances for the Mets last year (25.2 innings), Diaz shone. Well, mostly.

Despite walking a career-high 4.91 batters per nine (alarming but palatable with progress), the Puerto Rican product notched a career-best 1.75 ERA (2.18 FIP) with a greatly-improved 0.70 homers allowed per nine and a barrel rate over three percentage points lower than his 2019 metric (10.1 percent in 2019 to 6.8 percent in 2020).

With viable options around him and Seth Lugo in newcomer Trevor May (spin rate king; story coming Tuesday), reclamation-hopefuls Dellin Betances and Jeurys Familia, as well as quality depth arms in Aaron Loup, Miguel Castro, Brad Brach, and whoever else may find their way into the Mets’ relief corps this season, this could be different.

Without the added pressures of making Brodie’s trade look better or being some unrealistic impermeable force at the back-end of the ‘pen, Diaz can simply go out there and pitch.

Many hands make light work.