Recent NY Mets waiver claim from SF Giants has an easy to diagnose weakness to fix

The New York Mets aren’t taking it easy with roster moves in the final days of the 2026 season. They’ve both added and subtracted with one of their latest moves becoming the decision to DFA Xzavion Curry while adding Philip Abner via waiver claim away from the San Francisco Giants.

Other than being teammates with ex-Mets prospect Brandon Sproat, one of the more interesting aspects of his game is his fastball. No, he doesn’t throw heat. Like so many random Mets roster additions, he isn’t going to blow you away. His 174 fastballs thrown in the majors this year have averaged 90.6 mph. Baseball Savant ranks this in the 6th percentile.

Not ideal for the most commonly thrown pitch, the 24-year-old was a worthwhile project for the Mets to take on with maybe the idea of having him drop the pitch altogether. Brooks Raley hasn’t thrown a 4-seam fastball since 2023. Why not train Abner to drop it and focus on something else?

Developing a new pitch arsenal is what Philip Abner needs to be a Mets success

Not only has he thrown softly, he has gotten hit hard. A .349 batting average and .558 slugging percentage against the pitch this year, most of his 7.11 ERA in 2026 was the result of throwing free Slurpees for batters to smack. His second most commonly used pitch, the curveball, won’t be one to use much more. Using a sinker or sweeper, perhaps, gets him some bigger outs.

Abner wasn’t nearly as bad in the minors. In 46 career innings in Triple-A, he has a 3.72 ERA and somewhat surprising 10.6 K/9 rate in spite of not having velocity on his side. 

There’s nothing about his splits this year. Last season, however, he held lefties at bay. A southpaw himself, they hit .157/.217/.315 against him. In an almost equal amount of chances vs. lefties and righties, he somehow found himself allowing 4 long balls to lefties and only 1 to righties even with righties slashing .283/.348/.383 overall.

Age plus two remaining minor league options after this year help justify the addition. Certainly a candidate to be gone before we know it, he’s also a 40-man roster occupant that could linger around until camp.

The Giants, who only claimed him off of waivers from the Arizona Diamondbacks a little over a month ago, probably thought a few of these same positives about Abner. There’s nothing particularly exciting about him and yet we understand the intrigue as to why the Mets might believe they can make the most out of him.

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