We spent the entire 2025 season watching the New York Mets bullpen ride the rollercoaster of volatility, all while a potential solution was quietly rehabbing in Port St. Lucie. When the Mets signed Adbert Alzolay to a two-year minor league contract last January, it wasn’t a move that broke the internet; it was a calculated gamble, a “draft and stash” maneuver that David Stearns loves to execute. Now, after a year of silence and Tommy John surgery rehab, it’s time to cash in that ticket.
According to Will Sammon of The Athletic, the 30-year-old right-hander is expected to be fully healthy and ready to roll for Spring Training. This isn’t just a depth piece returning; this is a guy who, when right, possesses ninth-inning stuff. I’m convinced that if Alzolay is even 80% of what he was in 2023, the Mets just added a high-leverage arm for pennies on the dollar.
The 2023 Version Was a legitimate Closer
To understand why the Mets waited a full year for this guy, you have to look at the tape from his breakout 2023 campaign with the Chicago Cubs. Alzolay was electric, tossing 64 innings with a sparkling 2.67 ERA and striking out 9.42 batters per nine. He wasn’t just throwing hard; he was pitching smart, using a 74.6% strand rate to escape jams and a 42.2% ground ball rate to erase mistakes.
His pitch mix is tailor-made for today’s game. He attacks hitters with a slider-sinker-four-seamer combination that, at its peak, was nearly unhittable. In 2023, opposing batters hit a miserable .198 against his slider and an even worse .176 against his sinker. He allowed contact, sure, but it was weak contact. He limited damage better than almost anyone in the National League, and that is exactly the kind of stability this bullpen needs.
The Velocity Dip Told the Story Before the Surgery
The drop-off in 2024 was steep—his ERA ballooned to 4.67 in just 17.1 innings—but in hindsight, the red flags were waving vigorously. We saw his sinker velocity dip from 95.3 mph in 2023 to 94.3 mph the following year. That lost mile per hour was the scream of an elbow hanging by a thread.
He wasn’t pitching at full capacity; he was trying to survive. Now that the ligament is fixed and the rehab is behind him, the expectation is that the velocity will return. If he’s sitting 95-96 mph again with that wicked slider, the Mets didn’t just find a middle reliever; they found a guy who can get big outs in October. The year of waiting is over, and I have a feeling Alzolay is going to make it worth the patience.