Mets roster leftover from the previous regime remains a crucial piece in the playoffs

David Stearns cleaned house so well with the New York Mets roster when he took over that a whole HGTV program dedicated to it could have lasted a couple of episodes. The roster turnover was major with several pieces thought to be potential salary dumps as well.

Players like Omar Narvaez, Starling Marte, and Jeff McNeil were trade candidates in the offseason to varying degrees. None were moved. Narvaez was eventually DFA’d when the breaking point came. You can’t have a catcher on your roster who can’t throw out runners. It’s inexcusable.

A far more minor box of lo mein left from the Billy Eppler regime has been a big part of the Mets’ success in 2024. He remains so even into the playoffs. Reed Garrett, in a breakout year that saw him go from 0 to 60 then suffer a flat tire and eventually an injury mid-year, has gone back to doing what he did so well for the Mets in parts of the regular season. The Mets picked him up in the middle of 2023 off of waivers from the Baltimore Orioles. He did barely anything in the majors. He always seemed one fresher waiver claim away from being replaced.

Reed Garrett has given the Mets reason to trust him again

It wasn’t a strong conclusion to the regular season for Garrett who gave up 4 earned runs against the Milwaukee Brewers in the team’s 6-0 loss. The bad outing completely altered the statistical interpretation of his year. His ERA went from a still awesome 3.18 up to where it would finish the season at, 3.77.

Month to month, fans never knew quite sure what Garrett would offer. He was an unmatched 5-0 with a 0.57 ERA in April after getting called up early in the season. It’s easy to forget how he didn’t even start the year with the big league club. It turns out his remaining minor league option was enough for Stearns to at least give him a chance to prove himself. If nothing else, he’d be someone who could eat a couple of innings up in a blowout loss before maybe heading into the DFA pile.

Garrett represented the stereotypical reliever this year with plenty of all-or-nothing situations. His strikeout numbers were amazing throughout the year. Eventually finishing with 13 per 9, it was a vast improvement over anything he did in his professional career at any level. Coming into 2024, his high of 9.9 per 9 in the minors both in 2022 and 2023 represented the best he had done there. Who knew Garrett possessed the ability to carry any of that success with him into 2024 and still look this good in October?

Garrett is no longer the multi-inning assassin he was on a regular basis early on in the year which is fine in the playoffs when off-days are plentiful. He remains a questionable call on back-to-back days, too. With zero days of rest in 7 games during the regular season, he had a 4.26 ERA. With only one day of rest, it launched up to 5.63. Garrett was at his best with two or three days of rest. Those situations included respective ERAs of 1.69 and 1.42.

It has been so far, so good for Garrett in three relief appearances in the 2024 postseason. Used in the sixth and seventh exclusively, there is a chance we see him slightly elevated in the NLCS if trust in Phil Maton has faded enough. His two scoreless innings behind Kodai Senga and David Peterson in their Game 1 over the Philadelphia Phillies shouldn’t be forgotten. A player back on the rise following a dip of faith, he’s a slice of cold pizza left in the GM’s office Stearns thought was good enough to keep around. It continues to pay off.