Temporary NY Mets roster spot filled by ground ball pitcher we hope is another Rico Garcia

While Rico Garcia laughs with a 0.45 ERA in 20 innings for the Baltimore Orioles this year, the New York Mets are left hoping they accidentally stumbled onto another gem in minor league free agency. To temporarily fill a roster spot that’ll possibly go to a minor league call-up to start a game in place of Clay Holmes, they’ve promoted Daniel Duarte.

Joey Gerber is down, A.J. Minter slides to the 60-man IL (more housekeeping than meaningful), and we begin the journey with Duarte in the bullpen hoping he’s an unsung offseason hero that can stick around.

Does Daniel Duarte have the stuff to stick with the Mets?

Firstly, he has a minor league option remaining which won’t put the Mets in a bind. There’s no DFA’ing unless they feel he isn’t good enough. With Garcia last year, the team had to keep him on the major league roster or pass him through waivers. The first time they did he was claimed by the New York Yankees. The second time, after reclaiming him, the Orioles were the ones who saw what Garcia could do.

Duarte is a much different pitcher. Reliant on ground balls, Bo Bichette doesn’t need to fight the sun to have an immaculate defensive game. He and the rest of the infield will need to stay on their toes.

The ironic thing about Duarte is despite throwing a sinker that keeps the ball down low is he has a high 1.6 HR/9 rate in the majors. The ground ball rate is a little skewered because of the smallness of the sample. In 31.1 innings in 2023, accounting for the majority of his 38.1 MLB innings, it was at an even 50%. That year still included 5 home runs which is incredibly high for someone who tries to keep the ball on the ground.

“What have you done for me lately” should apply to Duarte. A 0.00 in the 2025-2026 Mexican Winter League, he had a ridiculous 0.58 WHIP. More recent is the 2.60 ERA posted in Syracuse. With only 1 home run allowed in his 17.1 innings of work, he was impressive enough to join the lot of rotating arms in the bullpen. With Austin Warren earning a spot for keeps at the moment and the team yet to declare who’ll start the next time Holmes’ turn comes through the rotation, it made sense to give Duarte a look.

This will undoubtedly be a short stint barring injury. However, he isn’t really competing with anyone else. Alex Carrillo has been bad. Dylan Ross is practically using his minor league innings as rehab this year. Jonathan Pintaro has done well, but is probably best-suited to eat innings. The Mets have enough of those guys in their bullpen right now.

The kind of “okay, this signing makes sense” type of move David Stearns has made regularly for the Mets, it’s his high tendency for ground balls that’ll keep him as an option or make him a quickly forgotten member of the 2026 roster. His last time out included the lone home run he has surrendered all year. An uncharacteristic outing where he had 5 fly balls hit against him versus 8 total batters, there’s a key trend he’ll look to avoid this time around.

Anthony DiComo reported the Mets had to call up Duarte or he could exercise an upward mobility clause and join another team. Rather than let this happen without getting a closer look, they've chosen to use a practically vacant roster spot to find out.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow