The Mets signed right-hander Julian Merryweather to a minor league deal this evening, as relayed by MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo.
Merryweather, 33, was a fifth-round pick by Cleveland back in 2014. Traded to Toronto as part of the Josh Donaldson deal, he made his big league debut with the Blue Jays during the shortened 2020 season. The right-hander showed some promise with a 4.15 ERA and 2.27 FIP across 13 innings in that rookie season, but he never quite lived up to it in future seasons after he was derailed by elbow and oblique issues among other injuries over the years. He put together a 5.64 ERA and 4.36 FIP in 47 appearances with the Blue Jays overall before being designated for assignment in January of 2023.
The right-hander was promptly plucked off waivers by the Cubs, and enjoyed the best season of his career that year. In 72 innings of work as a high leverage arm for Chicago, Merryweather posted a 3.38 ERA with a 3.52 FIP and struck out a fantastic 32.3% of his opponents. Those huge strikeout numbers were enough to overcome a career-high 11.9% walk rate, and Merryweather entered the 2024 season firmly in the Cubs’ late inning mix alongside closer Adbert Alzolay and offseason addition Hector Neris. Unfortunately, Merryweather was part of a bullpen implosion early in the season that proved fatal to Chicago’s chances last season. He spent most of the season sidelined by a knee injury that ultimately required surgery, and even when he was healthy enough to pitch he struggled to a 6.60 ERA with a strikeout rate that had plummeted to just 18.9%.
It was easy enough to blame Merryweather’s struggles in 2024 on his injuries, which may have thrown him off mechanically and contributed to his fastball velocity losing two ticks relative to the prior season. To whatever extent that may have been the case, however, a healthy offseason clearly wasn’t all it took to fix Merryweather’s issues. His velocity remained down this year, and 2025 proved to be more of the same as he pitched to a subpar 5.79 ERA while striking out a career-low 17.0% of his opponents and walking a career-high 12.5%. The right-hander’s 21 outings for Chicago this year were clearly too much for the club to stomach, as he was designated for assignment as the team turned to more reliable late-inning options like Brad Keller, Drew Pomeranz, and Daniel Palencia who had emerged in recent weeks.
Merryweather eventually went unclaimed on waivers, and the Cubs had the option to outright him to the minors as a non-roster depth option for the remainder of the year as he was a few days shy of the ability to reject the assignment while retaining his full salary. Chicago chose to grant the righty his release, however, and he returned to free agency late last month. Now, he’s on to New York to join a Mets club that is tied with Chicago for the best record in the National League. The Mets will try to recapture what made Merryweather so effective with the Cubs in 2023 while he gets to work at Triple-A Syracuse as a potential depth piece alongside arms like Justin Garza and Colin Poche.