Meet the Mets: Adonis Medina reliable out of the bullpen

25-year-old New York Mets relief pitcher Adonis Medina began his career at the young age of 17 in the Philadelphia Phillies organization. Born in the Dominican Republic, Medina signed as an international free agent with the Phillies and began his career pitching in the Dominican Summer League where he was highly successful. Early in his career Medina was considered a top 100 prospect. 

From there he spent a year at about each level, working his way up the ladder from rookie ball all the way up to AA in 2019. In a shortened 2020 season where there was no minor league baseball, Medina threw four innings for the MLB Phillies, allowing three hits and two earned runs. From there on Medina has gone back and forth between AAA and the MLB level, with decent success in limited opportunity. On April 7th it was announced that Medina had been acquired by the Mets for cash, from the Pittsburgh Pirates, shortly after they had acquired him from Philadelphia off waivers. 

Medina has been highly effective this season for the Mets, in nine games and 16 innings pitched, Medina has kept a sub-four ERA and a 6.8 K/9 rate.

Most importantly, he has limited his walks and proven to be an effective long reliever, replacing Sean Reid-Foley, who went down earlier this season with a partially torn UCL. 

Medina’s repertoire is more expansive than a typical relief pitcher. He wields five different pitches, all of which he uses at least 12% of the time. His most popular pitch is a mix between his sinker and his slider. He uses each of these pitches about a quarter of the time. From there he also has a fastball, changeup, and curveball. This season he has relied most heavily on his sinker as his putaway pitch but has the highest whiff percentage on his fastball, which sits at about 93 MPH. 

Mets fans can be happy for Adonis Medina watching him shut down the heart of the Dodgers order for his first career save earlier this month. Regardless of whether Medina sticks around bullpen help is always welcome and the Mets can be happy to be sitting atop the NL East with the return of both Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer on the horizon.