The perplexing part of how the NY Mets reacted to losing Edwin Diaz to the LA Dodgers

You’ll never be able to look at the word “perplexing” again without thinking of Steve Cohen and Edwin Diaz. His word-choice to describe the choice Diaz made when he chose the Los Angeles Dodgers over the New York Mets will forever link itself to this massive free agent loss.

On the scale of fun words, perplexing is one we all know and can appreciate. It’s fun to say, fun to spell, and you get to use the “x” for a change without having to go to a website where you’re not quite sure anymore who’s a bot or if the entire world has gone mad.

There’s another aspect of Diaz’s free agency which is perplexing. It was believed, and I do believe it, that they signed Devin Williams preemptively as a sort of “just in case” with Diaz with a plan to have him as the setup man and Diaz as the closer. All signs indicate it was precisely what they intended considering they chased Diaz until he ghosted them. What’s so weird about that? After Diaz left for the Dodgers, they kind of abandoned the idea of building a super strong bullpen.

The Mets offseason changed directions immediately after Edwin Diaz went to the Dodgers

The Mets did pick up Luke Weaver, but he could have been a match regardless of whether or not they had Diaz. Costing a noticeable amount less in AAV, he probably wouldn’t have come to the Mets if they were able to lock up Diaz.

Weaver does have mild closer experience. We can understand why this was the next move for the Mets bullpen. Other than him, the team kind of settled into what they already had.

Williams, Weaver, and a returning Brooks Raley will headline the bullpen to begin the year. We’ll get A.J. Minter back around May for another late-inning option. The bullpen starts to fall into obscurity thereafter. They did sign Luis Garcia to a modest contract that won’t even reach $4 million in incentives. The rest of the relief corps is trending toward becoming some combination of Huascar Brazoban, Tobias Myers, Bryan Hudson, and maybe the closest thing to an answer after losing Diaz, Craig Kimbrel.

Kimbrel is far back on the depth chart in terms of actually closing games for the Mets. At least he has the proven guts to do it. There’s a lot of “maybe” and “how about…” with the Mets bullpen. They were unable to pivot to Robert Suarez who signed a day prior to Diaz. Tyler Rogers, a non-closer, ended up with a large three-year deal with an option for a fourth with the Toronto Blue Jays. We can’t even blame the Mets here.

Why didn't the Mets build a better bullpen?

What might hold the Mets bullpen back most is their lack of rotation flexibility. Six starters deep barring injury, one roster spot that might’ve otherwise been used on a free agent or trade acquisition is occupied.

This offseason’s free agent class of relievers was a unique one with many of the top names being closers or having the desire to finish off games. Someone like Pete Fairbanks lingered for a while. A chance to close games for the Miami Marlins trumped any contract offer the Mets could have made to make him their third best right-handed reliever.

The best chance the Mets probably could have had at acquiring a top relief pitcher would have been to swap David Peterson, Mark Vientos, or Brett Baty for one. We can’t tell for sure how many of those kinds of offers were actually out there.

New York’s bullpen approach seems to be one where they’ll let more unproven guys, or ones on the decline like Kimbrel, fight it out in spring training. It’s not a bad plan and actually where David Stearns has done some of his best work. Still, it’s a perplexing change of direction that the Mets didn’t invest a little more into the bullpen after last season. They definitely have plans. It’s the uncertainty of it all, alongside so much else, which adds to the confusion.

There was never any massive reaction to losing Diaz. Transactionally, they seemed to accept it, signing Weaver to be their originally intended Williams and adding Kimbrel as a wild card.