The Sunk Kelenic Effect
Edwin Díaz looked good in 2020. He's still far from proving himself.
A few days into September 2020, conventional wisdom did a stomach-churning backflip. Edwin Díaz was good now; he’d put his miserable 2019 season behind him, and he was back to being that monstrous closer we’d gotten from Seattle for Jarred Kelenic.
“Edwin Diaz now has a 1.89 ERA while striking out nearly 20 batters per 9,” tweeted Danny Abriano, an SNY contributor, on September 9th. “What will it take for some fans to finally admit that he’s good? An ERA below 1.00?” It was emblematic of prevailing sentiment: Díaz was back, and anyone who denied it was denying reality.
The way Díaz boosters told it, you’d think Díaz was Rudy, and Mets fans were the snooty critics saying he was too small to play football. But despite the haughty declarations that Díaz is back and better than ever, it’s far from clear. Edwin Díaz still has a lot to prove. Until he does, his 2020 season barely means anything.
Sure, Díaz looked great in 2020. He put up a 1.75 E.R.A., and struck out 17.5 batters per nine innings. He pitched undeniably well. But Díaz also pitched undeniably well in 2019 — until he didn’t. In 2019, after 52 games, not far from a 60-game season, his E.R.A. was 1.71, and he’d just nailed down a save against the Tigers. Then, suddenly, it all fell apart.
Yes, Díaz looked great last season, but he only made 19 appearances. In his career, Díaz has sustained elite-closer level dominance over a full season exactly once, in 2018. This led the Mets to give up Jarred Kelenic to acquire him, but we don’t like to think about that. Díaz doesn’t have an established, multi-season portfolio of being the best closer in the game to fall back on. Until he proves otherwise, there’s no reason to simply assume that his default setting is domination over a full six-month season.
What will it take for fans to finally admit that he’s good? How about a full season of him being good? Díaz will blow some saves even in a good year; everyone does. But how about we examine more than a 25-inning sample size before declaring him reborn?
There’s also the fact that last season, despite the flashy E.R.A. and strikeout numbers, Díaz wasn’t as good as he looked. His Walks and Hits per Innings Pitched (WHIP) was 1.247, far higher than the 0.791 he posted during his dominant 2018 season, and, honestly, a mediocre number for a supposedly elite closer. Jeurys Familia’s WHIP in 2015 was an even 1.000. New Met Trevor May has posted a WHIP below Díaz’s 2020 mark in each of the last three seasons. Díaz walked nearly five batters per nine innings in 2020, a large jump even from his disaster of a 2019 season. He struck out lots of opposing batters, and allowed far fewer home runs, but his control was worse than ever.
Díaz also made a lot of mistakes that didn’t show up in his stat line. He inherited 10 runners in 2020; six of them scored. It got to the point where Díaz just couldn’t enter a game with runners on base, which is the opposite of what you want from a supposedly elite closer. An emblematic outing came on August 19th. Against the Marlins, Díaz entered with the Mets up by a run, with two outs and the bases loaded. It was the kind of situation a lights-out closer lives for: all you need is one shutdown batter, a few unhittable pitches, and you’ve done your job. Instead, Díaz walked the first batter he faced, bringing home the tying run.
A week later, facing the Marlins again, Díaz faced a similar situation, and a chance at redemption. He entered with the bases loaded and one out. But after he struck out the first batter he faced, he allowed a run-scoring infield single — then walked in another run. Neither of the runs showed up in his E.R.A., but they’re not runs that an elite closer allows. Neither are the runs that Díaz allowed on the penultimate day of the season, when he entered a tie game with a man on third against the Nationals. He needed strikeouts — but instead, Josh Harrison, the first batter he faced, hit a line drive to right, and the Nationals scored the go-ahead run.
Edwin Díaz has elite stuff and dominant potential. That’s not up for debate. What’s uncertain is his ability to actually close down games. He did it in 2020, to a point — but he hasn’t done enough. He still needs to show that he can dominate over a full 162-game season, the way he did for the Mariners but hasn’t yet for the Mets — and also, that he can lock down messy situations he inherits, rather than melting down and making them worse. Until he can do that, he won’t have proven anything.