Familiar NY Mets foe signs with the Braves, can he please make the roster?

It has been a rather quiet offseason for the Atlanta Braves. A year off from winning the National League East but not from getting eliminated quickly in the playoffs, the team didn’t have a whole lot to do to make themselves contenders again. While the New York Mets were busy handing out mega-contracts and rebuilding their rotation practically from the ground up, the Braves have made much smaller moves.

Several ex-Mets have made their way to Braves camp. Jake Diekman, Dylan Covey, and Chasen Shreve are among the non-roster invitees hoping to earn a shot with the Braves to open the year or at least impress other clubs enough to get an opportunity there. On Monday, a familiar name to the Mets but not because he ever wore their uniform joined the competition. On a minor league deal, the Braves added Hector Neris.

What was that news? I think I just heard a bases clearing double.

Familiar Mets foe Hector Neris is back in the NL East and we couldn’t be more thrilled

It has actually been a couple of seasons since Neris was a frequent competitor of the Mets. Two years with the Houston Astros followed by a mostly disastrous season that began with the Chicago Cubs last year but ended back with the Astros, the longtime Philadelphia Phillies reliever is someone Mets fans grew accustomed to seeing meltdown on the mound. He had his share of those blow-ups last year with the Cubs to the point where he was DFA’d.

Ironically, Neris pitched 3 clean innings in 4 days against the Mets last season at Wrigley Field. He’d add one more at Citi Field later in the season. In a year where he was prone to implosion, the Mets missed out on their usual damage.

In 56 career games against the Mets, now accounting for 257 batters, Neris has been smacked around for a .263/.340/.439 slash line. New York has clobbered him with 10 doubles and 10 home runs. No other team has double-digits in either category. It would seem the Mets have been the biggest thorn in his side. Fellow NL East teams have a much worse OPS against him, the Braves at .619, Miami Marlins at .606, Washington Nationals and .672, and his former Phillies at .422. Then there are the Mets at .778.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=nerishe01&year=Career&t=p

Mets players have changed, but sometimes it’s just the uniform a player sees. Neris had no issue last year. It helped lower his career ERA versus the Mets to 4.47 but didn’t remove the 8 losses.

We don’t care much for what happens at Braves camp other than for players to use up all of their talent or think so highly of themselves they get a dose of reality in the regular season when Double-A pitchers are no longer available to tee-off against. Cheering for Neris is an exception.