The sheer dominance of Jeurys Familia

Jeurys Familia was thrust into the closer’s role this season after showing some improvements the year before. Bobby Parnell, last year’s presumed closer went down in his first game, received Tommy John surgery for his trouble and is still on his way back to pitching in the majors. The man who took over the ninth inning for the vast proportion of 2014, Jenrry Mejia, is out until July 10th with a banned-substance suspension. He recorded 28 highly-dramatic saves for the Mets last season after being removed from the rotation, and was the assumed closer going into 2015. Now, he may not even be back in the bullpen when his penalty is up.

Thus it’s been that we now have Familia saving the day, or more accurately, every day. Familia has been nothing short of stupendous in 2015, posting an NL-leading 13 saves, with a 6.67 K/BB ratio and an ERA just under 1.60. But the 25-year-old Dominican native isn’t just getting lucky, he’s dominating the competition. Righties are hitting him at an anemic .156 average, but lefties are doing even worse at .115. He’s walked just three, which is the same amount of runs he’s given up over 17 innings of work. Among closers with at least five saves, his 20 strikeouts are fourth-best in that group, and his 0.65 WHIP is second only to Wade Davis‘ 0.50. With all this sudden success one could be forgiven for asking if this is for real, or just smoke and mirrors.

For all intents and purposes, this is as real as real gets. Familia’s K/9 rate has steadily increased over his time with the Mets from 6.75 in 2013 to 10.59 this year, and his BB/9 has steadily decreased from 7.59 in 2013 to 1.59 presently. Of course Familia only pitched 10.2 innings in 2013 and 17 so far in 2015, but improvement is improvement, and nothing about this growth seems temporary or due to small sample size. Outside of an extremely friendly BABIP, Familia seems to be controlling his fortunes, and it is largely due to his devastating 96-mph sinker which he is now throwing more than ever before. This pitch, properly mixed with his slider and fastball, is a big part of the reason why hitters are swinging at more pitches outside of the zone, and swinging and missing at more pitches overall.

His Swinging Strike rate is up to 17.3% this year compared to 12.5% last season, and hitters are making contact with all of his pitches 65% of the time versus 72.7% in 2014. When guys are making contact against him it’s now more likely than ever to be a ground ball than a liner and to be hit toward the opposite side of the field rather than pulled or up the middle. Meaning guys are getting jammed more often by Familia’s high-velocity breaking pitches, when they aren’t simply swinging and missing at his dominating stuff. Want more? Balls that are classified as being hit “hard” against him, are at the lowest point in his Mets career.

To put it even simpler, he’s passing the eye test. He doesn’t seem to get rattled easily, as evidence by Chris Davis‘ home run to start the top of the ninth on May 5th. After that shot, the Orioles were down just one run. Familia bared down and struck out Delmon Young, then got the next two batters to fly out and ground out to end the game. He’s a legitimate competitor, and he does it without the childish flash we dealt with last year. True, his BABIP is unsustainable, as is his 97.6 Left On-Base%. Looking at his deeper stats and watching him pitch though, it feels like the Mets are in good hands for the immediately future, even with a normal regression forecast.

Will roles change when other guys are healthy and ready to enter the fray? For the sake of continued success for both Familia and the Mets, I certainly hope not.