It's Been a Year

Happy Thursday! Consider a paid subscription to The Mets Newsletter? If you get that sub, you won’t get pathetic pleadings from me to subscribe!

The Mets were 0 for 4 with the bases loaded when Francisco Lindor came to the plate in the bottom of the sixth inning. The score was 1-0 in favor of the Philadelphia Phillies, but the Mets were threatening again. There was one out and the bases were drunk again - Starling Marte was on third, Tyrone Taylor on second, and Francisco Alvarez on first. But they all got on when Jeff Hoffman was on the mound. Now it was Phillies closer Carlos Estévez. Lindor swung hard and missed at a pitch, but the count was in his favor - two balls and one strike. Estévez, let’s be honest, threw a cookie. The fastball was supposed to tail outside. Instead, it was down Broadway. Lindor hit the baseball a very long way. A grand slam.

The sellout crowd went wild. Oh did they go wild. They were waiting all game long to cheer. If the Mets won the ballgame they would advance to the NLCS. This was supposed to be a “transitional year”. They were 0-5 and 22-33 when the Latin pop star and Grimace entered their lives and they became a well-oiled machine. 

Lindor didn’t have to hit a grand slam. He could have cleared the bases with a well-struck double. Hell, he could have singled in two and the Mets still would have won that night - the Phillies would not score again. But no, Lindor went for it. A grand salami. The royal flush of baseball. And he showed no emotion jogging around the bases. He was so cold-blooded (and possibly still fighting a back injury.) It wasn’t a moment for the underdog to get caught up in the bright lights. It was time to win. It was the moment Francisco became the leader. 

After the final out, there was the standard hugging and jumping. There was also tears from the two Met veterans on the team, Lindor and Brandon Nimmo. It was the first time the Mets had ever clinched a postseason series in their home, Citi Field. You would be forgiven if you joined them in that emotion.

The Met Files gives us a detailed look at each New York Met. Today we’ll be looking into Edwin Orlando Díaz Laboy.

Edwin Díaz was first and foremost a center fielder growing up in Naguabo, Puerto Rico. It was his father that convinced him that pitching was his ticket to Major League Baseball. In this case, father knew best. He attended Caguas Military Academy, where he was given the nickname “Sugar” due to his resemblance to the titular star pitcher in the 2008 film Sugar. Díaz was drafted in the third round by the Seattle Mariners in the 2012 MLB Draft. The Mariners had Sugar as a starting pitcher up until 2016, when after six starts in Triple-A he was moved to the bullpen. By August of that year, he was the closer for the Seattle Mariners. He was dominant in the beginning - Díaz struck out 50 batters in just 25.1 innings, the fastest a pitcher ever reached that mark in the modern era. 

Sugar’s 2018 earned him his first All-Star appearance. He won the AL Reliever of the Month award in April. And June. And July. Díaz broke the record for most saves in a season by a Puerto Rican hurler. He became the youngest player to ever reach 50 saves in a year. Mariners manager Scott Servais followed through on his bet with Díaz by getting a Díaz inspired haircut. He won the AL Reliever of the Year award, easily, with his 57 saves.

So naturally, the Mariners traded him. It was the price they had to pay to get rid of the albatross that was Robinson Caño’s contract. Caño and Díaz were shipped to the Metsies for Jay Bruce, Jarred Kelenic, Anthony Swarzak, Gerson Bautista, and Justin Dunn. There was a lot of hand-wringing at the time over dealing Kelenic, the Mets’ 1st round pick from the year before. That would prove to be silly - in 1344 major league at-bats so far in his career, Kelenic has put together a 0.1 bWAR and an 84 OPS+. He was recently outrighted by Atlanta. 

At first, Caño seemed to be the prize. Díaz’s inaugural campaign with the Mets wasn’t very good. It seemed like any ball that was hit remotely deep off of Sugar would go out for a home run. He ended up allowing a record 15 9th inning home runs in 2019, which is kind of impressive considering he lost his closer gig to Seth Lugo over the summer. His ERA was an unacceptable 5.59. The reason for his decline seems obvious in retrospect - he changed his entrance music away from “Narco” in favor of “No Hay Límite by Mike Woodz. He reverted back to “Narco” by Blasterjaxx and Timmy Trumpet after the 2019 season.

Díaz only converted six of ten save opportunities in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, but he finished with a much, much better 1.75 ERA. He got his closer job back in 2021, where he was okay. 2022 is when he blossomed into an All-Star again. He finished up a combined no-hitter in an April game against the Phillies, the second no-no in Mets history. On an early evening in August, Timmy Trumpet performed live to the “Narco” track as Díaz sauntered to the Citi Field mound. It was one of the coolest things ever witnessed on a baseball field. Naturally, he got the save.He finished the season with a ridiculous 1.31 ERA.

There was no 2023 MLB season for Díaz. He suffered a completely random, gruesome knee injury while celebrating an emotionally-charged Puerto Rico victory over the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic. He underwent surgery to repair a full-thickness tear of his patellar tendon and missed the entire year. Not coincidentally, the Mets suffered their first losing 162-game season since Díaz became a Met. 

Shaking off the unintended year off, Díaz struggled. He briefly lost his closing gig again, and spent time on the injured list with a right shoulder impingement. He was tossed from the June 23rd game against the Cubs because his hands were too sticky, earning a 10-game suspension. After that though, he more or less returned to form. On Game #161, Díaz blew a three-run lead in the eighth inning in part because he forgot to cover first base. He talked Carlos Mendoza into coming back out for the ninth when the Mets regained the lead. He ended up throwing 40 pitches, but he got the save. While his teammates celebrated clinching a playoff berth by jumping up and down, Díaz remained in place, slamming his glove onto the mound. Sugar wasn’t going to make the same “mistake” he made in the World Baseball Classic. Three days later, Díaz picked up his first career postseason win when he threw a scoreless 7th and 8th innings in Milwaukee before the Mets made their 9th inning comeback (David Peterson closed it out.) Once again, Edwin simply walked towards his celebrating teammates after the final out was recorded, slapping his hands together with a smile on his face. His first postseason save came six days after that in the NLDS clincher over the Phillies.

Díaz was dominant for most of 2025. There was a point during May where batters went 0-for-30 against him. He was named to the All-Star team for the third time in his career, his second in the National League. In July, he was named Pitcher of the Month for the 10th time in his life. Sugar finished with a 1.63 ERA. The slow collapse by the Mets was by no means his fault. 

The guy throws just two pitches (basically) - a fastball and a slider, and he still gets the job done. He’s very good at his job. He’s box office. And he will most certainly opt out of the final year of his current contract with the Mets. 

Díaz  turns 32 next March. Several pundits seem to think President of Baseball Operations David Stearns would rather eat rocks than give a thirtysomething closer a multi-year deal. Closers, it is believed, are volatile. Time will tell what Stearns actually does, or if Steve Cohen might make an executive decision to make sure Díaz comes back.

Anthony DIComo revealed what we suspected - the only scenario in which Kodai Senga would have made the Mets playoff roster is if there were “multiple” pitcher injuries. 

On this day 10 years ago, Jacob deGrom struck out 13 batters in seven shutout innings to help the Mets beat the Dodgers in Game 1 of the NLDS. 

Starling Marte turns 37 today.

We missed up: First base coach Antoan RIchardson turned 42 yesterday, not 32. Sorry, Antoan.

26 years ago today, Todd Pratt walked off the Arizona Diamondbacks on a home run that just eluded Steve FInley’s reach to clinch the 1999 NLDS.