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Mets reliever Edwin Diaz could have some challengers for the closer job
The Case for Edwin Diaz
While he struggled in his debut season for the Mets, Edwin Diaz has a lot of natural ability, as he demonstrated in his 2018 campaign where he had one of the best seasons as a closer in MLB history.
Despite his issues in 2019, he still managed to save 26 games for the Mets and was one of the league leaders in strikeouts among relievers. His main issue was giving up the long ball, which he gave up a career-high 15 times last season.
Despite these issues in last season, Diaz will likely enter Spring Training slotted as the closer, with it being his spot to lose. If he regains his old form, or at the very least is a more consistent pitcher, than this debate hopefully should be over.
Diaz attributes this to an issue with his slider, which was one of his knock out pitches in 2018 but was flat in his debut season for the Mets and commonly hung over the plate, which led to his increased home runs allowed.
Now that he has had a season to recover from any nagging injuries and believed he found the cause of his second-half struggles, hopefully, he’s taken steps to mitigate these issues in 2020, New York hopefully will have the closer that they thought they originally traded for.