The Dominance of Edwin Díaz
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It’s the top of the ninth inning in Citi Field. Jacob deGrom, Seth Lugo, and Trevor May have combined to pitch eight scoreless innings to stake the New York Mets’ one-run lead.
Three outs are all New York needs to escape the night with a win against the rival Philadelphia Phillies, who’ve slowly crept up on New York’s coattails these last two months. Those three outs won’t come easy.
Up first, shortstop Bryston Stott, the rookie who’s hitting .351 in 10 games this month. Next, first baseman Rhys Hoskins whose 2.7 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) is fourth-best on the team and second among all position players. If the Mets can face the minimum, the last batter will be the third baseman Alec Bohm, who ended July with a .434 average. The only players better than Bohm by that metric were Austin Riley, Freddie Freeman, and Juan Soto.
Standing sixty feet away from the three hitters, with the sounds of “Narco” piping through the standing, is New York’s All-Star closer Edwin Díaz.
The closer’s night starts out uneventfully with a groundout from Stott, but things turn after Hoskins walks to put one man on. Two batters later, Díaz walks catcher J.T. Realmuto to put two on with two outs.
As Díaz duels with Nicholas Castellanos, pinch-runner Edmund Sosa swipes third while Realmuto gallops into second for a double-steal. A single from Castellanos could not only tie the game. It could hand Philadelphia the lead and perhaps a win.
But before Castellanos can conceive the idea of handing the hurler his first loss since May 24, the outfielder has to make contact. He’s done so twice this at-bat, yet both pitches - a fastball and a slider - were fouled off. To give the Fightin’ Phils a chance, Castellanos has to do better than that. He has to do better than Díaz.
Despite Castellanos fouling off the slider one pitch earlier, it was the right idea. The slider landed in the bottom-right of the strike zone. If Castellanos hadn’t fouled it off, it’d have been strike three. With the game on the line, Díaz returns to the same pitch in the same location.
With the whip of his arm, the 28-year-old throws the pitch to Castellanos. It trails from the middle of the zone to the bottom right. Exactly where it was earlier. Exactly where Díaz wanted it. It, however, achieves the opposite result than one pitch ago. This time Castellanos swings through it for strike three.
In the wake of his 200th career save, Díaz pumped his chest with his hand, screamed in bliss, slapped his glove, and shared a hug with catcher Tomas Nido. “New York Groove” by Ace Frehley sounds off while fans celebrate the win and the closer they’ve come to love.
But before “Narco” became Díaz’s ninth-inning anthem -- before he could claim the title as baseball’s best closer -- before the pitcher was celebrated and beloved by the Flushing Faithful, Díaz was a pariah.
In December 2018, the Mets acquired both Díaz and second baseman Robinson Cano and $20 million from the Seattle Mariners in exchange for outfielders Jay Bruce and Jarred Kelenic, pitchers Anthony Swarzak, Gerson Bautista, and Justin Dunn.
However, the joy that followed Díaz’s arrival to Queens quickly became vitriolic during the 2019 season. During the 2018 season in Seattle, Díaz allowed 41 hits, 16 earned runs, five home runs, and 17 walks with a 1.96 ERA. The numbers earned him the American League Reliever of the Year Award.
By the 2019 All-Star break, Díaz had allowed 39 hits, 21 runs - all earned - seven home runs and 11 walks. All while posting a 5.60 earned run average (ERA) with 1.456 walks and hits per inning pitched (WHIP). The second half of the season told a similar story. Nineteen hits allowed, 15 earned runs, eight home runs, and 11 walks for a 5.50 ERA.
By season’s end, Díaz had allowed 15 ninth-inning home runs this season, the most given up by a single season in Major League History, along with seven blown saves.
His 5.59 ERA that season was the seventh-worst in the Majors. Nestor Cortes Jr., Jeurys Familia, Shawn Armstrong, Kelvin Herrera, Adam Conley, and Wei-Yen Chen were the only relievers with a worse ERA.
The offseason brought with it questions. While Díaz and Cano floundered, Kelenic ascended to the rank of one of baseball’s best prospects. Did the Mets make a massive mistake? Did New York get tricked into trading a future star for a one-trick wonder?
Díaz’s 1.75 ERA in the 2020 season settled nerves, but 2021 only reaggravated them. Though Díaz’s 32 saves were seventh-most, his six blown saves were tied for third. His 3.45 ERA was the second-worst in his seven seasons pitched, as were his 24 earned runs. It was progress for the pitcher, but it far from merited his acquisition.
Though the other players involved in Díaz’s arrival to Queens have struggled, for Díaz to merit his acquisition, he had to become the player the Mets traded for. He had to become the best closer in baseball again.
To the shock of perhaps everyone but Díaz, the closer hasn’t just become the pitcher he was in 2018 when he received Cy Young and American League MVP votes. He’s become better.
His 1.33 ERA, 300 earned run average plus (ERA+), 0.92 FIP, 17.9 strikeouts per nine innings (K9) pitched, and three home runs allowed are the best markers Díaz has ever posted in a season, as is his 52.2 percent strikeout rate.
What’s more, Díaz leads all relievers in K/9, FIP, expected fielding-independent pitching (xFIP), and WAR, according to Fangraphs. Though he has two fewer saves than Josh Hader, who leads the Majors, Díaz has rebuilt himself from a capable arm to the best closer in the game.
How?
Unlike most riddles, the answer to Díaz’s dominance is overt. In a game obsessed with the radar gun and a 97-99 MPH fastball, it’s easy to understand Díaz’s reliance on his fastball. Its usage was presumably encouraged. From 2017-2021, he threw the pitch more than 60 percent of the time. Yet with his reputation at stake in a contract year, Díaz did something he never had before: He turned away from his fastball and toward his slider.
This season, Díaz has thrown his slider a career-high 56 percent of the time. Last season, he only threw the pitch 37.8 percent of the time. That 20 percent increase has brought his fastball usage down to 43.9 percent, the lowest mark in the closer’s career since 2016, according to Baseball Savant.
In some ways, it’s hard to comprehend why Díaz didn’t make the switch earlier in his career. His slider has generated a higher swing and miss rate, chase rate, strikeout rate, and whiff rate. The pitch also has a lower barrel rate and hard-hit rate than his fastball, also according to Baseball Savant.
But this season, Díaz’s slider is on a different level. Of the closer’s 94 strikeouts, 76.6 percent come from his slider. Opposing hitters also have a .129 batting average with a .155 slugging percentage against it. And when they do make contact with the pitch, it’s harmless. Of the 15 hits Díaz’s slider has let up, 14 have been singles. The only other hit was a home run. In other words, only 3 percent of all sliders Díaz has thrown result in a base hit for the other team.
The success Díaz is enjoying isn’t unparalleled. Other closers have had seasons on par with him. Some others have had seasons better than him. Yet not all those closers did so after the fanbase they played for turned after them. Not all of those closers could face the boos and criticism of New York for three seasons only to come out of the other end better than ever.
