Reed Garrett made a name for himself in 2024 and this season he’s out to prove it was no fluke.
“Last year was not a fluke,” Reed Garrett said in a recent interview down in Port St. Lucie. He meant the Mets as a whole, but he’s also out to prove 2024 wasn’t a fluke season for himself, either.
Garrett came into the 2024 season having thrown just 44 1⁄3 big league innings—and not particularly good ones. After returning from two years pitching in Japan, he had some success in the minor leagues with the Orioles, but that didn’t stick at the major league level and the Orioles designated him for assignment in June of 2023, at which point he was picked up by the Mets.
Going into last season, Garrett was listed as the 11th reliever on the Mets’ bullpen depth chart on FanGraphs and projected for a 4.75 ERA. He ended up almost a full run lower than that while racking up an incredible 83 strikeouts in 57 1⁄3 regular season innings. Part of the reason he struck out so many batters is that he added a sweeper that complimented the existing gyro slider in his arsenal. He also started using his splitter a lot more and that pitch was very effective for him in 2024, devastating opposing hitters. The results were nothing short of remarkable.
Garrett’s meteoric rise was a tonic to a bullpen that desperately needed some reliability behind Edwin Díaz. But as a result, he was used a lot early and inevitably got hurt, missing a month of the season due to elbow inflammation. He was effective once again coming off the injured list, though, and was an instrumental part of the Mets’ stretch run last season.
The Mets added A.J. Minter to the bullpen mix and brought back Ryne Stanek, in addition to taking fliers on some interesting arms to compete for bullpen jobs this spring. But unlike this time last season, Reed Garrett’s roster spot is secure. As long as he is healthy, he will almost certainly play a crucial role in the Mets’ bullpen in 2025.
Garrett was asked in the same interview I referenced earlier about things he is working on this spring, and he mentioned his fastball, which he used only sparingly last season. There’s a reason for that: he has trouble throwing it for strikes. He has already transformed himself by simply throwing it less and just mixing it in once in awhile to give hitters a different look. But if he can actually turn his fastball into a usable complementary offering to his sliders and splitter, then he can take the next step in 2025 from effective to elite.
Relievers like Garrett, Dedniel Núñez, and José Buttó are exactly the type of pitchers the Mets have had trouble developing internally, and they have often had to turn to free agency to fill those roles. If that group can demonstrate that their 2024 seasons were not flukes, it represents the next step forward for the organization as well as for the players.