NY Mets Monday Morning GM: 3 overlooked Opening Day roster upgrades from last year

3) Middle relief

How bad was the Mets bullpen last year? Numbers will be deceiving and you can swing them any way you want it. They were great in April and miserable for many of the middle months. Multiple injuries and early DFAs had them turning over plenty of rocks to find a solution. This year’s projected bullpen versus last year’s is already shaping up to be significantly better.

The Mets opened the year with an inflexible group of relievers. Yohan Ramirez made the team. So did Michael Tonkin. Each got battered around early and often. They combined for only 15.1 innings of work and were quickly sent to the waiver wire. Ironically, both would come back for a second stint.

Expected to have one less reliever because of a planned six-man rotation, the way they’ll handle the bullpen staff should be much different. Some extra flexibility with minor league options should help mildly. More important is the talent. A full year of Jose Butto and Dedniel Nunez is huge. A repeat of what Reed Garrett gave them last year would be superb. A clutch guy like Ryne Stanek plus the biggest addition of all A.J. Minter leaves far fewer doubts about this bullpen staff at the moment.

It’s impossible to ever know what a bullpen will or won’t be. The hardest to determine role on any major league roster, it seems like the Mets are taking far fewer risks with the relief corps with sensible choices over many of the bargain ones from last year.