Inside The Mets

Mets' Carlos Mendoza explains where Edwin Diaz must improve

New York Mets manager Carlos Mendoza would like to see his closer improve on this one aspect for 2025.

Grant Young

Apr 15, 2024; New York City, New York, USA; New York Mets pitcher Edwin Díaz reacts after getting a save against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Citi Field. Mandatory Credit: John Jones-Imagn Images
Apr 15, 2024; New York City, New York, USA; New York Mets pitcher Edwin Díaz reacts after getting a save against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Citi Field. Mandatory Credit: John Jones-Imagn Images / John Jones-Imagn Images
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There's no question that New York Mets right-handed reliever Edwin Díaz is one of baseball's best closers.

As recently as the 2022 season with New York, Díaz produced a sterling 1.31 ERA and 32 saves in 35 save opportunities in 62 innings pitched, which earned him MLB Reliever of the Year honors.

A few months after that 2022 campaign ended, Díaz suffered a complete right patellar tendon tear in his leg while celebrating a victory for the Puerto Rican National Team during the 2023 World Baseball Classic, which caused him to miss the entire 2023 season for the Mets.

Díaz returned to the mound in 2024 but didn't always look like the same dominant closer the Mets had gotten used to in 2022. While he still posted a respectable 3.52 ERA, he blew 7 of his 27 regular season save opportunities.

However, the most eye-opening statistics from Díaz's 2024 campaign had to do with stolen bases. He conceded 22 stolen bases during the regular season (with just one caught-stealing), which is almost double the most amount of stolen bases he had conceded in any regular season to that point.

Read more: Mets' Edwin Díaz makes assertion about 2026 opt-out opportunity

This is why it wasn't surprising to hear New York Mets manager Carlos Mendoza convey that Díaz needs to get quicker to the plate, which he was quoted saying in a February 25 article from the New York Post.

“Trying to get it under 1.5 [seconds to the plate],” manager Carlos Mendoza said when discussing what Díaz is working on during spring training. “This is a guy that was almost 2 seconds to the plate last year. If we get him somewhere around the 1.5 [range], it’ll give our catchers a chance and people aren’t just basically walking to second base.

"When he gets some game action, those are some of the things we’ll be looking for. And he knows, and he wants to work on it. And picking bases, too — he wasn’t as comfortable last year throwing over,” he added.

If Díaz can quicken his pace to the plate, perhaps that will be the first step in him reclaiming his 2022 dominance.

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Grant Young
GRANT YOUNG

Grant Young covers the New York Mets and Women’s Basketball for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco, where he also played Division 1 baseball for five years. He believes Mark Teixeira should have been a first ballot MLB Hall of Fame inductee.

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