The forgotten disastrous NY Mets trade from an otherwise nearly flawless deadline

The 2015 New York Mets trade deadline had a lot of impressive moves. None was bigger or more impactful than landing Yoenis Cespedes. Separate trades for Addison Reed and Tyler Clippard paid off well, too.

On August 4, 2015, the team made another that didn’t quite turn out like the rest. With an atypical 5.91 ERA, the Mets bought into the idea they could get more out of lefty Eric O’Flaherty. After all, they saw him thrive for years with the Atlanta Braves. He had a 1.99 ERA with them from 2009-2013 in 249.1 innings. Incredibly useful in the era of the LOOGY, the Mets didn’t run into the same kind of luck.

The trade for Eric O’Flaherty was an outlier at the 2015 trade deadline for the Mets

O’Flaherty was cooked and wouldn’t suddenly regain his excellence after leaving the Mets. He pitched in 2016 and 2017 with the Atlanta Braves with a near 7.00 ERA in the first and almost 8.00 in the second. The Mets only gave him 8.2 innings worth of outs. He was somehow worse.

In those 16 appearances, O’Flaherty had a 13.50 ERA. It started with 4 earned runs in his debut while recording two outs against the Miami Marlins. The Mets still won the game as O’Flaherty entered the game in the 9th with the Mets leading 8-0. It would take Hansel Robles and then Jeurys Familia to conclude the game.

O’Flaherty frustratingly struggled regularly even with the luxury of facing only one batter at times. He gave up a run in 3 of his 5 appearances in September.

Lefties hit .414 against O’Flaherty during his time with the Mets. 12 total hits in what would come out to 5.2 innings versus lefties, he was an inefficient specialist who didn’t meet expectations.

The unfortunate part of O’Flaherty’s stay was he replaced Alex Torres on the roster. More known for his unique hat, Torres had a deceptive 3.15 ERA for the Mets in 2015 and was DFA’d upon the acquisition of O’Flaherty. He didn’t get the job done against lefty hitters either, getting smacked around to a .268 batting average. While better than O’Flaherty, it wasn’t good enough for what the Mets desired. They were willing to take the risk and never backtracked by allowing O’Flaherty to linger and keeping Torres in the minors after he cleared waivers.

In the playoffs, the Mets used Sean Gilmartin, their best and most used lefty in the regular season, alongside Jon Niese as their two lefties in relief. O’Flaherty was left behind and has become mostly forgotten.

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