One of the underappreciated parts of the recent run of the Mets is the bullpen Sandy Alderson and his team have assembled. While the Mets were rebuilding, and even going back through the years, the Mets have frequently had thin, overpriced pens. For example, earlier Alderson-era bullpen iterations had relied heavily on washed-up former closers, your Frank Franciscos, Kyle Farnsworths, and Jose Valverdes. If you go back a little further into the Omar Minaya era, you have splashy free agent signings like Francisco Rodriguez and pricey trade acquisitions like J.J. Putz.
More recently, though, the Mets have gotten a lot out of pen mileage out of their own farm system and shrewd acquisitions of players without big names. With the Mets ranking second in National League bullpen ERA, it’s fun to see where these guys came from and how they became Mets.
Jeurys Familia: Signed with the Mets as a July 2 international player for $100,000 in 2007. Initially a starter, and viewed as a high-ceiling prospect, Familia’s stock as a prospect rose and fell as his chances of staying in a major league rotation waxed and waned along with his command and arm health. Ranked as the 13th best Mets prospect by BP before 2011, 3rd on the 2012 Mets list and 89th globally, and 8th on the 2013 Mets list. Familia spent most of the 2013 season on the major league DL with elbow problems, which ended any realistic chance of a starting career, before establishing himself as a top setup man in 2014 and a top closer in 2015.
Familia’s background as a top starting pitching prospect that converted to a great major-league reliever while putting command and injury woes in the past is shared by many impact short relievers. The Yankees currently have three in Andrew Miller, Dellin Betances, and Aroldis Chapman, for example. Other than Familia, it’s not represented in this Mets bullpen, because the Mets have developed most of their recent top pitching prospects into front-end major league starting pitchers.
Addison Reed: A third-round pick of the Chicago White Sox in 2010, Reed represents a fairly rare class: the high round college reliever draft pick that continued on to become a quality major league reliever. Reed blitzed through all four levels of full season ball in his first full season in 2011, reaching the majors a little over a year after his drafting. By 2012, he was the 81st ranked prospect in baseball by BP–eight spots ahead of Familia–and the top prospect in the White Sox system. That spring, Reed established himself as the White Sox closer. Reed spent two solid if unspectacular years closing for the White Sox before being traded to the Diamondbacks for then-top prospect Matt Davidson. In 2015, Reed lost the closer position in Arizona, and even ended up spending a month in the minors; the Mets picked him up in a minor waiver trade. With some slight tweaks to his slider by Warthen, Reed has been excellent in setup work as a Met.
Antonio Bastardo: Bastardo’s player development with the Phillies is a lesser version of the Familia conversion project, a middling starting pitching prospect and turned into a fine but unexceptional short reliever. Signed at age 19 out of the Dominican Republic, Bastardo battled arm injuries while working his way up through the Phillies system. Despite quality stuff and results, injuries and his height (listed at 5’11”) led evaluators to project him as a lefty specialist with a chance for more. Initially called up as a starter for the Phillies in 2009, Bastardo spent a few years on the Triple-A shuttle while finding a role, and eventually established himself as a high-strikeout, high-walk setup reliever by 2011. He held that role down with a good deal of consistency for the Phillies before being dealt for pitching prospect Joely Rodriguez before the 2015 season. The Mets signed Bastardo to a two-year, $12 million contract this past offseason, more or less the going rate for quality setup help.
Jerry Blevins: Owner of the best Twitter account of any Met, Jerry Blevins was a 17th round pick of the Chicago Cubs in 2004 out of the University of Dayton. Used in relief as a pro, Blevins had an unremarkable career until 2007, when a delivery tweak in High-A ball caused his stuff and strikeout rate to skyrocket. In the middle of the 2007 breakout, the Cubs traded him to Oakland for Jason Kendall, and Blevins reached the majors that September. Blevins spent the next few years on the Oakland/Sacramento shuttle, even being exposed to waivers a few times, but eventually established himself as a major league lefty specialist. Blevins was then traded twice for outfielders–to the Washington Nationals before 2014 for speed demon Billy Burns, and to the Mets before 2015 for fourth outfielder Matt den Dekker. Blevins suffered a pair of freak broken arms and missed most of 2015, but the Mets re-signed him for 2016 for $4 million regardless.
Jim Henderson: Two fun Jim Henderson facts–Henderson is one of the only three active major leaguers remaining that was drafted by the Montreal Expos (Ian Desmond and Brandon Phillips are the other two) and he’s one of only four active major leaguers taken in the Triple-A phase of the Rule 5 draft (along with fellow Met Alejandro de Aza, Alexi Ogando, and Justin Bour). Given that he was a 26th round pick of a defunct franchise and went in the portion of the Rule 5 draft where teams can protect anyone of any consequence, Henderson is among the more unlikely major leaguers around, but here he is. After time in the Montreal/Washington and Chicago Cubs systems as an organizational player, Henderson landed in the Brewers system as a 26 year-old minor league free agent in 2009, initially assigned to the Low-A Midwest League. By 2011, he rose to become the closer of the Brewers Triple-A affiliate in Nashville; he also started throwing in the mid-90s with a plus slider and posting obscene strikeout rates. Called up to the majors in 2012, Henderson was Milwaukee’s closer in the second half of 2013–and then promptly blew out his shoulder early in 2014. Outrighted off the Brewers roster, Henderson spent most of 2015 working his way back in Triple-A. Signed by the Mets during the earliest stages of minor league free agency, Henderson bounced back to throwing mid-90s with a plus slider again this spring, and has been mostly excellent in middle and setup relief, save for a few days of overuse.
The ability to get a guy who throws 95 or even higher with a plus slider in “free talent” zones like minor league free agency, waivers, and the Rule 5 draft is something that has greatly changed modern bullpens. An arm the caliber of Henderson’s, especially with major league closing experience used to be a scarce commodity that teams would die to get, even with his string of arm injuries. And now Henderson isn’t even the only Met with that profile that’s been freely available …
Hansel Robles: Robles, a 2008 international signing, first pitched his way into prospectdom in 2012 with Brooklyn, posting a 1.11 ERA as a starter. His transaction history is a bit of a rollercoaster ride–he was added to the 40 after that stellar 2012, cleared waivers and was outrighted after a mediocre 2013, and re-added after a midseason relief conversion in 2014 added a bit of extra oomph to his fastball. Called up in a relative surprise move early in 2015, Robles has pitched fairly well as a middle reliever, running his fastball into the high-90s and flashing a promising slider. This refrain gets familiar quick.
Logan Verrett: A third round pick out of Baylor in 2011, Verrett never made a BP prospect list, but moved at a solid pace through the system, projecting as a back of the rotation starter. After surviving 2014 in Triple-A Las Vegas, Verrett was not added to the Mets’ 40-man roster, and was the last pick in the Rule 5 draft by the Baltimore Orioles. After failing to make Baltimore’s 2015 Opening Day roster, Verrett was claimed on waivers by the Texas Rangers, where was hidden as the last man in the pen and had four mostly poor relief outings to start his major league career. A month into the season, the Rangers returned Verrett to the Mets. Verrett would ultimately be called up by the Mets in mid-June, and served as a valuable long man and spot starter down the stretch, a role he continues in this year. Verrett, like most members of the Mets bullpen, features a plus slider, although he usually only works in the low-90s with the fastball, even in relief.
Josh Smoker: Smoker isn’t on the major league roster, but he is on the 40-man, and he fits well within a discussion of freely available relief talent. Smoker was a supplemental first round pick of the Washington Nationals in 2007, 31st overall. He struggled through severe shoulder injuries as a starting pitcher, and was close to a non-prospect until a bullpen conversion in 2011. The pen conversion initially went well–Kevin Goldstein ranked him 16th among Nationals prospects entering 2012—but his shoulder gave out again the following June, and Smoker was out of organized baseball in 2013. He tried a comeback in 2014 for independent Rockford of the Frontier League, where he posted an ERA over 4.00 and walked 7.1 per 9 while working back from a torn rotator cuff. But he was a lefty throwing in the mid-90s again, and therefore Smoker caught the eye of a Mets scout. At 26, he was the oldest pitcher on the Low-A Savannah roster in 2015, but armed with a fastball now in the high-90s, a devastating splitter, and, of course, a flashing slider, Smoker started striking out hella dudes. Ending the season in Binghamton, Smoker was passed over for a September callup last year, but did get a 40-man roster spot to protect from minor league free agency and the Rule 5 draft, and should finally make his major league debut sometime this year.
If Smoker’s story sounds like the “homegrown” version of Jim Henderson’s rise, well, it pretty much is, except Smoker was a more highly regarded talent out of the draft. And while I wouldn’t go so far as to say you can get relievers anywhere, a look at the Mets bullpen shows a broad, diverse group of backgrounds, none of whom was acquired by paying closer prices in money or talent. That–and collecting guys with velocity and a slider–is how to make a bullpen in the 2010s.
Photo Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports