2023 Mets midseason grades: Relief pitchers

The final piece of our midseason evaluations on the 2023 New York Mets is in, and it has to do with the beleaguered bullpen, as they ranked 21st in the majors in reliever ERA at 4.12. There has been much disappointment, with the shocking injury to Edwin Diaz in the World Baseball Classic setting a bad tone for the season. It also exposed a fatal flaw in roster construction this winter by Billy Eppler and his staff.

Like we did with the position players and starting pitchers, we will sort each graded pitcher by most innings pitched, and all relievers with 15.0 or more innings pitched were considered for grades.

David Robertson – 2023 Mets relief pitcher grade

1st Half Stats: 39.1 IP, 36 games, 2-2, 2.06 ERA, 46 K, 11 BB, 202 ERA+, 13 saves

David Robertson was signed to be the setup man for Edwin Diaz. However, the freak injury to Diaz in the WBC forced David Robertson into the full-time closer’s role for the season. And so far, he’s passed with flying colors, getting the job done, as it was a role he’s been familiar with before his time with the Mets.

His velocity on his cutter and slider have gone up. His average against his cutter has dropped more than 80 points from last year and over 160 points from two years ago, and he’s throwing it for strikes more often. His slider though hasn’t yielded the same results, as the average is up from .167 last year to .381 this year, but it in a much smaller sample size. Other than that nitpick, you could not have asked for anything better from the Mets’ closer in 2023.

Grade: A+