LAS VEGAS — Sometimes it just takes one big deal for the dam to break. And late Wednesday night, during baseball’s annual winter meetings, that deal apparently arrived when reliever Jeurys Familia decided to return to the Mets for a contract worth $30 million over three years.
Soon after, Joe Kelly agreed to a three-year, $25 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers, the team he tortured during the World Series while pitching in relief for the Boston Red Sox. The remaining dominoes in a saturated market for relief pitchers — including big names like Craig Kimbrel, Zach Britton and Andrew Miller — may now follow suit and shortly sign new deals, too.
But it was the Mets, who have taken an aggressive approach under their new general manager, Brodie Van Wagenen, who pounced first.
Familia, who left the Mets for the Oakland Athletics in a trade in July, probably will not be formally reintroduced as a Met until early next week because he still has to pass a physical. Nor will he be the Mets’ closer, as he had been before he departed. But Van Wagenen, careful to couch his words because the deal was still pending, was clearly happy that the Mets now have a talented, and experienced, reliever in place to serve as the setup man for the team’s new closer, the recently acquired Edwin Diaz. A Mets bullpen that was among the worst in baseball last season has clearly been fortified.
“Age, performance, repertoire and comfort with someone who is able to fit in our market and our team,” Van Wagenen said Thursday, listing the reasons the Mets wanted Familia to return.
Familia, who is 29, was the youngest of the top free-agent relievers on the market this winter. He posted a 3.13 earned run average and 18 saves in 72 innings last season between the Mets and Oakland. In seven years as a Met, he amassed 123 saves and a 2.66 E.R.A. and was named an All-Star in 2016.
From 2014 to mid-2018, he was, for the most part, a durable, reliable member of the Mets’ bullpen. But his 2017 season was cut short because of a 15-game suspension related to a domestic violence incident and by blood-clot surgery in his throwing shoulder.
In the midst of a disappointing 2018 campaign, the Mets traded Familia to the contending Athletics for salary relief, two prospects and international bonus pool money. Even then, Familia, who signed with the Mets at 17 out of his native Dominican Republic, hoped to return. Relief pitchers can be unpredictable from season to season, but the Mets are banking that their intimate knowledge of Familia will make it easier for him to have a successful 2019, although this time as a setup man.
“The better you know the player, the more comfortable you are with getting the performance that you’re projecting,” Van Wagenen said.
Despite the additions of Diaz and Familia, the underbelly of the Mets’ bullpen is still a question mark. While Seth Lugo and Robert Gsellman are viewed as capable options, several other relievers — Tyler Bashlor, Jacob Rhame, Paul Sewald and Drew Smith — are seen as less so. And Daniel Zamora is the only left-handed relief pitcher currently on the team’s major league roster, and his experience in the big leagues consists of the 16 games he pitched for the Mets last season.
Van Wagenen is still seeking to add a catcher and an outfielder to the Mets’ roster but said that he also hoped to keep improving the bullpen this off-season — although with pitchers that will cost less than Familia did. The Mets acquired Diaz this month as part of a trade with the Seattle Mariners that also returned second baseman Robinson Cano.
As for Kelly, who is 30, he had a 4.33 E.R.A. in four and a half seasons with the Red Sox, but he saved his best performances in Boston for 2018. He brawled with the Yankees’ Tyler Austin in April — earning a suspension but also folk-hero status in Boston — and was superb in all five games of the World Series, throwing six shutout innings with no walks and 10 strikeouts. He was a key factor, and a surprising one, in Boston’s championship run.
Kelly, who went to high school and college in Riverside County, Calif., east of Los Angeles, should help stabilize a Dodgers setup group that faltered against the Red Sox. In turn, the Red Sox, who also expect to lose Kimbrel in free agency, said they were not planning to spend heavily in the bullpen, although the departure of Kelly, and presumably Kimbrel, will surely sting.
“We feel comfortable with the guys that we have out there,” said Dave Dombrowski, Boston’s president of baseball operations. “Are we open-minded to add people? Yes. But we’re not going to be big-expenditure people at this point in the relief market. Our payroll’s pretty high right now.”
The Red Sox retained starter Nathan Eovaldi last week with a four-year, $68 million contract. Boston had a payroll of more than $230 million last season, which was the highest in baseball, and could be at that figure again in 2019 after projected raises through salary arbitration.
Tyler Kepner contributed reporting.
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