If a hitter has a great season in the last year of his contract, some will say it was driven by the desire to cash in on a lucrative new deal. But few say that about relievers. Well, Edwin Diaz cashed in on a great, great year with a reported 5-year, $102 million deal. Is it a good idea to sink that much money into a reliever? Well, if you’re Steve Cohen it’s no big deal. The Mets retain their closer who was automatic in 2022. But he’s the same guy who was nothing special in 2021 and downright bad in 2019.
If Diaz is as good going forward as he was in 2022, this will be a good deal
But, there’s also an opt out – early reports don’t say what year(s) that will be available – so if Diaz is that good, he’ll be looking for more money. And if he returns to 2021 (or heaven forbid, 2019) levels, he’ll just enjoy $20 million per year for results that are not close to that dollar figure. In seven seasons in the majors, Diaz has earned FanGraph Dollar Values of at least $20 million just two times, in 2018 and 2022.
All in all, it’s better to have Diaz than not to have him, so long as the money spent on him doesn’t keep the club from re-signing Jacob deGrom or Brandon Nimmo. It remains to be seen if the Mets can retain all three of those players. In my opinion, Diaz is the least valuable of the three. It’s too soon, for me at least, to declare this good or bad. It’ll go up in my estimation if both deGrom and Nimmo rejoin him in Queens.
I’m pretty confident that we will sign both deGrom and Nimmo. Cohen is a businessman, but he’s also a fan! A very wealthy fan!
As for Diaz, his first year in NY was a disaster (ERA+ of 74!), but he was excellent in 2020 (ERA+ of 246) and 2022 (ERA+ of 297), and good/OK in 2021 (ERA+ of 117). It’s hard to believe that he would lose his devastating two pitches next year and the years after.
And he’s not that old at 28 now.
And if they had let him go to the Dodgers, for example, who was going to close for NY? Jensen? He’s not as good and would cost perhaps $18 million/year. And he’s 6 years older.
Geez, that was quick. The problem with this market is that if they resigned all of their players they would have the same team, only a lot more money.
Agreed Mike. It’ll cost a fortune to tread water, and as we saw, that was not sufficient.
Furthermore, FAs are getting more time, making contracts even harder to bear. The Mets are way off kilter with personnel and their plan to win or get to the WS with 3 years on the clock.
It is worth noting that the special sauce closers have is made of a secret recipe even they dont fully know. As a result, I think you can bank on about 50% of the contract life being miserable given how hard it is to repeat a year like last year. And Diaz has a record of up and down. As the Mandalorian’s tell us: this is the way.
with about a 235M$ base (incl arb and pre-arb) the wold looks like:
45 deGrom (no way Cohen lets him leave)
20 Diaz
20 Nimmo
= 330 M dollars
A 101 winning season and a consistent .623 % isn’t sufficient? Degrom, Scherzer and Bassitt failed in the playoffs and the Braves series. So you want to replace them? With who? Maybe Rodon for Bassitt? I know, that you know. that it is going to take a lot of money for the major league team to buy the time to develop the minor league teams. If they make the playoffs each year then they’ll have a chance. I’m very confident that they will be a playoff team and a chance to win the World Series in 3 years.
Well, Metsense, I hate to say it, but it was insufficent. The season is 6 months long and they choked for the better part of September. The braves are going nowhere and have a vast part of their young team under control. We also have a history, shall we say, of wetting the bed when it comes to critical games or series. If they cannot overcome the Brraves, then its WC get-lucky shootouts. Until this team is manifestly better than the braves, they will remain insufficient.
I also dont believe treading water will magically change the story around.
Will deGrom make 45M$ for 15-20 starts, about half of which will end in a ND and a team loss? Id let him walk and bring in Rodon. He’s on the downside of production. No one can imagine Freddy Freeman being anything other than a Brave….wait….
The Mets need more consistency at the plate, and more power. It is astonishing they can get 16 hits and 11 runs in one game then the very next game watch the entire team take 0’fers and lose 2-0. They need to have more capacity to sequueze something out of C and DH, both of which were monumentally offensive to watch this year.
Ive said it repeatedly, the team is unbalanced thanks to the Alderson/Wilpon federal disaster area front office. Now the team faces a massive FA crisis at a time when it would be good to progressively bleed in youngsters but cannot, so will need to spend gobs of fortunes on people that will further hamstring the budget. Its also unbalanced because Cohen gave the team a 5-year window to reach the WS. tick tick tick tick.
Treading water wont work. So its gonna get expensive. Ive said that all along.
Since Keith Law carries so much weight here, did you read his article today about what a disastrous move it was to sign Diaz to a new contract? In my eyes, with so many thing unsettled in the rotation, pen, catcher, and CF making the first move in the Hot Stove for a record breaking and likely unmovable contract for a closer means the situation wont be changing much.
I would much rather have woken up and found out they offered 10/300 for Pete, which would be a bargain if he gets to FA on schedule.
The Dodgers won 111 games and didn’t make the NLCS – was their season and team insufficient, too?
I think the opt out is year 3, and and a couple option for year 6, bringing to 122M$.
This is a *h*u*g*e* move because absolutely no one would dump this on a closer of all people with everything else that needs to happen. In fact the contract is so outrageous, that its not even likely to be tradable should the situation arise.
Mets are headed to 380M$ OD payroll.
Mo Rivera’s career was better than Diaz. Last year, Diaz equal Rivera’s best year in 2005.
Chapman, at the age 24-28, was a better than Diaz. He previously had the best contract as a closer with 5/ $86m.
The closer free agent market is flush with older closers that have passed their prime. Diaz cornered the market and because of this, he took the opportunity to cash in.
The Mets needed a closer. Diaz was the best available. Not to sign him would have been a downgrade and would have been a marketing error.
His contract is lucrative but fair in this market. It was a good choice for the Mets.
Dim the lights, sound the trumpets because Diaz is coming in !
This deal is nuts, as was the Lindor deal, but nuts is both a good and bad way. Metsense did a fine job in outlining the the reasons, and as usual, they make sense. The risk is enormous for sure. My initial reaction is one of surprise and one of happiness. Numbers aside, the Mets have an elite closer, a guy who overcame a horrific first year in the most demanding market, a guy who turned it around, a guy who won over the fans, and a guy who wants to be here. What’s not to be happy about?
Let’s face it. The money being paid in all of sports is out of whack. But when you think about a qualifying offer that is now up to $19 million giving Diaz 20 million and change per year is barely above the new normal. The same approach must be taken with Nimmo. deGrom was already set to make like $32 million so what’s another $8 million a year? The reality is that unless you are in a very small market team or simply don’t attract fans to the games, like the Rays and the Marlins or the A’s, I find it hard to believe that the owners are not making substantial amounts of money. Especially when for many of the owners their MLB team is their source of income. Fortunately, Cohen has stated that the Mets are not his source of income and he’s willing to overspend to create a perennial contender.
But returning back to Diaz and his new contract it is amazing how specialized we have become with creating millionaires whose job it is to pitch the seventh inning or the eighth inning or a three batter ninth inning. Or having a player on your roster like Gore, who could barely swing the bat but because of his legs has already earned three World Series rings. If you return to an earlier time many of these part-time players like Vogelbach or Ruf or Naquin would not have a place on a major league roster because of her inability to be a complete player. It used to be that the DH was someone who could no longer adequately play the field but still swung an impact bat. So in this specialized world I have no issue with the money being offered and the leap of faith in signing Diaz. After all, any adequate replacement would cost at least that much. Of course the prior management would’ve tried to pluck a retread of the garbage pile to serve in his role and save some money. It was money that they put back in their own pockets i’m not used to make the team better.
It’s not talked about enough, but the Mets really need to extend Allonzo and McNeil to lock them up for the next four or five years. That won’t come cheaply but if they wait and both have another good season in 2023 and the payroll will continue to be out of sight. The Diaz signing was necessary and it’s only the start. Can’t wait to see what happens next.
This was a big part of any offseason plan. Still in line with mine.
Closers, like the Saves stat, are overrated. We all seem to agree on that. But it’s Cohen’s money, so who cares if Diaz got the biggest reliever contract ever? Signing Diaz will not prevent Cohen from landing deGrom and Nimmo (or Bassitt and Walker). I’d be happy bringing back last year’s team with an upgrade of Contreras at Catcher. That’s certainly possible since budget does not seem to be much of an obstacle.
It’s also worth considering if the Braves rookies can maintain their outperformance from last year. MLB is full of good rookies who did not adjust once their opponents figured them out. A long history of sophomore slumps and flashes in the pan. If the Braves rookies don’t keep up, then the Mets team from last year beats them handily (and the Phillies, too).