In what seems like an annual event, the Mets are searching for an identity to their bullpen in the early stages of their season.
With Vic Black, Bobby Parnell, and now Jenrry Mejia sidelined with injury, the Mets have been forced to reshuffle the deck and figure out how the pieces they still have fit into the puzzle.
During that process, the Mets are looking for their relievers to seize the opportunities they currently have. In the case of Jeurys Familia, the Mets have essentially anointed him the closer for now, but hope he takes advantage of the chance he’s been given and secures the job going forward.
“If you’re a bullpen guy, and you want to be a closer, and you get the opportunity, you should run with it,” Terry Collins told Jared Diamond of the Wall Street Journal.
Familia has never been a regular closer in his career, although he recorded five saves in 2014 and six overall in his young career. He has dominant, swing-and-miss stuff in his arsenal with good downward movement on all of his pitches, making it that much more difficult to see the ball.
He arguably has the best stuff of anyone in the current bullpen – of the 393 sliders he’s thrown in his career, the opposition has swung and missed at 98 of them. That along with the high swing and missed rates on his fastball and sinker make him an ideal candidate to eventually anchor the bullpen in the ninth inning.
Collins said if Familia is successful in the role, the club won’t remove him from that role when either Mejia or Parnell return from the disabled list.
“If Jeurys is throwing the ball good, we’ll leave him there right now,” Collins said.
But even if that happens, the Mets then have to figure out how the other puzzle pieces fit into the solution as setup men to Familia. It’s not necessarily a bad thing to have so many swing and miss arms in the arsenal, and having these kinds of immediate options to the late-inning solution is a strength for any bullpen. But unstable roles don’t typically bode well for any pitcher, regardless of their talent level.
In other words, good problems aren’t good forever.
For more on Familia and the Mets bullpen, check out Diamond’s story in the Journal.
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