After putting together one of the most impressive seasons in his seven-year career, Edwin Díaz is for sure a lock to garner great interest from organizations across Major League Baseball, entering the market this offseason as an unrestricted free agent.
With the New York Mets, Díaz finished eighth in saves among all MLB relievers but struck out more batters than all relief pitchers ahead of him.
Notching his second career All-Star honors, Díaz assembled a campaign that shouldn't go without recognition due to the Mets' underwhelming showing in their best-of-five series against the San Diego Padres. There isn't a bullpen in the big leagues that doesn't improve with Díaz being inserted.
With that being said, here are four teams that Díaz could sign with this offseason:
Toronto Blue Jays
A team that displayed all the necessary offensive power to compete in October but fell short with little to no fight when the lights shined their brightest.
Crushing moonshots on a night-to-night basis isn't enough to propel a team in their run to the Fall Classic, and the Blue Jays learned that the hard way in October, quickly humbled by the Seattle Mariners in their best-of-three American League wild card playoff series.
During the playoffs, Toronto's bullpen was absolutely putrid, finishing with an 8.10 bullpen ERA -- the highest of any team in the MLB postseason and nearly two runs higher than the runner-up St. Louis Cardinals (6.48 ERA). Their season came to an end when the bullpen failed to maintain a seven-run lead after five innings.
As far as Díaz? The numbers speak for themselves. Blue Jays closer Jordan Romano, who is older than Díaz, had an awful showing in the playoffs -- recording a 10.80 ERA through 1 2/3 innings pitched. Adding Díaz would allow Toronto some much-needed late-inning flexibility of inserting Romano in a setup role.
San Francisco Giants
While the Giants need to address a plethora of roster voids in order to return to their 107-win form in order to compete with division-rival Los Angeles Dodgers, one area the front office needs to improve is San Francisco's bullpen.
While the Giants currently have a closer in right-hander Camilo Doval, Díaz would serve as a massive upgrade. Last season, San Francisco's bullpen posted an average 4.08 ERA while allowing the most base hits (653) out of any team in all of baseball.
Considering the Giants are likely planning on partaking in a bidding war for the AL home run champ Aaron Judge, who knows where bullpen additions sit on the front office's list of priorities?
Seattle Mariners
Why not?
Last season the Mariners showed they're far from a pushover in not just the AL West division, but in all of the AL. Getting swept in three consecutive games by the Houston Astros in the AL Division Series -- which was more so a representation of subpar management from skipper Scott Servais -- became a deceiving end to a convincing 2022 campaign from the Mariners.
Before taking the mound in Queens at Citi Field, Díaz became a household name in the list of most dominant relief pitchers as a Mariner. In 2018, Díaz was named the AL reliever of the year and led the AL in saves with 57 alongside his 1.96 ERA and career-high 124 strikeouts. That season, which served as his first All-Star season, put Díaz on the map.
With the Mariners holding leads in two of three postseason contests against the Astros, an arm out of the bullpen like Díaz's could have surely altered the outcome of that series entirely -- giving Servias a logical bullpen option rather than deferring to Robbie Ray to toss Yordan Alvarez a right-down-the-middle fastball with Game 1 on the line.
New York Mets
A pretty obvious choice for an abundance of reasons.
To begin, the infamous trumpet introduction out of the bullpen which took the league by storm is easily the most epic in all of baseball -- a race that Díaz takes with flying colors. Not only did Timmy Trumpet's "Narco" become a staple for Díaz, but the dominant flamethrower who can top his fastball at 100 mph, put it on the map.
Last season served as a major bounce-back campaign for Díaz with the Mets. Kicking off his Mets tenure in an uncharacteristic fashion, notching a 5.59 ERA through 58 innings pitched in 2019, then partaking in a massive collapse in 2021 which featured teammates such as Francisco Lindor giving directed thumbs-down gestures aimed at the discontent fans -- Díaz and the Mets were due.
In 61 appearances, Díaz delivered a career-best 1.31 ERA, saving 32 games while allowing 34 hits and striking out 118 batters through 62 innings pitched for the Mets.
With Díaz fresh off one of the most dominant campaigns from a relief pitcher last season, Mets general manager Billy Eppler will likely aim to retain the right-hander after New York's short-lived postseason run which came short in the National League Division Series against the Padres.
"Edwin was nothing short of fantastic this season and it was very comforting to watch him come running into a game," Eppler said, according to Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman of the New York Post.
