The Mets lost out on Trevor Bauer yesterday as he chose to pitch for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Clearly, the Mets are still looking to add pitching, so will they go for free agency or look to add another arm through trade?
Jake Odorizzi:
There are a couple of names left on the free agent market that could be a good fit for the Mets. Will they look at Jake Odorizzi? The right hander is coming off a lost season in 2020, but pitched very well in 2019. Odorizzi dealt with injuries last year, making two trips to the IL. When on the field he didn’t find much success, pitching to a 6.59 ERA. However, that’s over 13.2 innings, so it’s a very small sample size to draw upon.
In 2019, Odorizzi was a strong mid rotation starter. Over 159 innings, he pitched to a 3.51 ERA and had a career high 10.1 strikeout per nine rate. His 2019 numbers are right in the middle of the pack for most of the metrics, which is pretty reflective of his career, as a whole.
Odorizzi had the most success with his 4 seamer in 2019. He had a stunningly great -19 run value on his 4 seam fastball. That was seventh in the league on 4 seam fastball run value.
Odorizzi fastball gets a ton of break on his pitches. He had 3.2 more inches of break than league average in 2019 and didn’t lose that feature in 2020 (4.3 over average). His break increase has steadily improved since 2017.
There are risks with Odorizzi his game. His exit velo and hard hit rates aren’t great. His barrel percentage against is always slightly above league average and we can’t deny he isn’t a top of the rotation arm. We can likely expect an ERA between the top 3 or low 4’s. If you are good with that, Odorizzi is a safe bet. And with the Mets offense, it could be good enough.
Your thoughts on Jake Odorizzi?
Photo by: Quinn Harris/Getty Images