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NEW YORK — Inside the Mets clubhouse, Reed Garrett is calm, reserved and soft-spoken. The right-hander is quick to compliment his teammates and is pleasantly introspective.
On the mound, the bearded 32-year-old's persona is fiery. He deploys a knee-buckling splitter ahead of a pair of fastballs that regularly top 97 mph and a sweeper to match on the horizontal plane.
It took nearly a decade for Garrett to mold that major-league identity. After breaking through with the Detroit Tigers in 2019, he spent two seasons in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball before returning to the United States. But Garrett did not appear in more than 11 games after reemerging in Major League Baseball until last season.
Garrett's rise is unlike the others and a testament to the Mets' pitching development, turning a cast-aside arm into one of the team's most trusted relief pitchers early in 2025.
"This game’s ever-evolving. We’re never finished products," Garrett told NorthJersey.com this spring. "I think it’s all about taking each game and learning from it and seeing what information you can take away from it and then applying it the next time you go out there."
After a transformative 2024 season, Garrett is now counted among manager Carlos Mendoza's high-leverage bullpen options, alongside Edwin Diaz, A.J. Minter and Ryne Stanek.
That degree of trust has shown early. During last weekend's series with the Blue Jays, Garrett came in with at least two runners on and kept a run from being charged to the starting pitcher. On Friday in a two-run game, he picked up back-to-back strikeouts on Andres Gimenez and Alejandro Kirk on a splitters.
"He's done it before. He keeps doing it," Mendoza said. "I like his pitches, obviously, his ability to slow the game down, having the awareness of the situation, whether you're trying to make a guy chase or you're trying to get a ground ball."
Garrett has now shut the door in bigger spots, too. In Game 5 of last season's National League Championship Series, Garrett froze the Dodgers' Freddie Freeman on a back-door sweeper with the bases loaded to stop the bleeding for David Peterson.
It took a while for Garrett to earn that label but he's now a part of the Mets bullpen's circle of trust in a loaded unit. This season, he has tossed four scoreless innings with five strikeouts and a 0.75 WHIP among a Mets' relief unit has been the team's largest asset. The bullpen has allowed five earned runs in 35 innings (1.29 ERA) — best in MLB.
Garrett's rise began with a pitch that he learned as a member of the Saitama Seibu Lions: the splitter.
Yet he needed to learn how to be efficient with a ball in the major leagues that was marginally smaller and a little less tacky.
Garrett's splitter, which falls off the table with some arm-side movement, took off last season, producing a .132 opponent batting average and 51.1 percent whiff rate. Garrett threw it more than any of his other four pitches.
The splitter tunnels well off his cutter, sinker and sweeper to give opposing batters, from both sides of the plate, a lot to think about.
"He can pretty much throw (the splitter) whenever he wants and there could be a swing and miss," Hefner said. "The same could be true with his other pitches too.
"I think that’s what makes him so good is he’s able to get lefties and righties out at a pretty high clip. It’s all a credit to him. We gave him kind of a road map, but ultimately, he’s the one that’s put in the work and trusted us and trusted himself to go out and do it."
Last season, Garrett's 37.6 percent whiff rate was in the top 3 percent of MLB and his 33.6 percent strikeout rate in the top 4. But Hefner says the key with a pitcher like Garrett, who preys on hitters' aggressiveness, is getting himself in positive counts.
"I think there was times where I fell behind last year and tried to be too perfect," Garrett said. "Right now, it’s just more about going right after guys and doing the best I can."
Garrett believed the foundation began to be set late in the 2023 season after being claimed off waivers from the Orioles. He began last season in a strong place, allowing three earned runs in his first 26 innings while striking out 43 batters.
But as the workload mounted, Garrett began to scuffle, watching his ERA drift up to 3.64 before he landed on the injured list with right elbow inflammation in mid-July.
Garrett said he felt he overexerted himself in the first half of last season, often spending extra time searching for feel on his pitches in between outings, and it caught up to him. But both Garrett and Hefner believe he's in a much better spot this year with the movement of his pitches and the ability to adjust on the fly when something isn't working.
"It’s whatever you need to do in order every day to be available," Garrett said. "For me, I need to trust in the fact that my stuff is good enough. If I play catch outside and say, my cutter’s not very good playing catch. I don’t need to panic and keep throwing and keep throwing and keep throwing because hey, I have the ability that it’s going to be there when I need it."
There's a degree of comfort in the way that Garrett is pitching now in the 2025 season. His repertoire helps him handle both sides of the plate, he knows what he needs to do to execute and he's come through in critical moments.
"It could be a tight game with multiple runners on, so one swing of the bat changes the games and because he can get both sides out, we trust him to come in and put the fire out," Hefner said. "He’s not going to get the job done every time. He’s not perfect, but the stuff suggests that he should be able to continue to do what he’s doing and the mentality and the whole package is in a really good spot."
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Reed Garrett: How NY Mets reliever earned high-leverage bullpen spot
Continue reading...
On the mound, the bearded 32-year-old's persona is fiery. He deploys a knee-buckling splitter ahead of a pair of fastballs that regularly top 97 mph and a sweeper to match on the horizontal plane.
It took nearly a decade for Garrett to mold that major-league identity. After breaking through with the Detroit Tigers in 2019, he spent two seasons in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball before returning to the United States. But Garrett did not appear in more than 11 games after reemerging in Major League Baseball until last season.
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Garrett's rise is unlike the others and a testament to the Mets' pitching development, turning a cast-aside arm into one of the team's most trusted relief pitchers early in 2025.
"This game’s ever-evolving. We’re never finished products," Garrett told NorthJersey.com this spring. "I think it’s all about taking each game and learning from it and seeing what information you can take away from it and then applying it the next time you go out there."
Reed Garrett joins Mets' high-leverage mix
After a transformative 2024 season, Garrett is now counted among manager Carlos Mendoza's high-leverage bullpen options, alongside Edwin Diaz, A.J. Minter and Ryne Stanek.
That degree of trust has shown early. During last weekend's series with the Blue Jays, Garrett came in with at least two runners on and kept a run from being charged to the starting pitcher. On Friday in a two-run game, he picked up back-to-back strikeouts on Andres Gimenez and Alejandro Kirk on a splitters.
"He's done it before. He keeps doing it," Mendoza said. "I like his pitches, obviously, his ability to slow the game down, having the awareness of the situation, whether you're trying to make a guy chase or you're trying to get a ground ball."
Garrett has now shut the door in bigger spots, too. In Game 5 of last season's National League Championship Series, Garrett froze the Dodgers' Freddie Freeman on a back-door sweeper with the bases loaded to stop the bleeding for David Peterson.
It took a while for Garrett to earn that label but he's now a part of the Mets bullpen's circle of trust in a loaded unit. This season, he has tossed four scoreless innings with five strikeouts and a 0.75 WHIP among a Mets' relief unit has been the team's largest asset. The bullpen has allowed five earned runs in 35 innings (1.29 ERA) — best in MLB.
What makes Reed Garrett unique
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Garrett's rise began with a pitch that he learned as a member of the Saitama Seibu Lions: the splitter.
Yet he needed to learn how to be efficient with a ball in the major leagues that was marginally smaller and a little less tacky.
Garrett's splitter, which falls off the table with some arm-side movement, took off last season, producing a .132 opponent batting average and 51.1 percent whiff rate. Garrett threw it more than any of his other four pitches.
The splitter tunnels well off his cutter, sinker and sweeper to give opposing batters, from both sides of the plate, a lot to think about.
"He can pretty much throw (the splitter) whenever he wants and there could be a swing and miss," Hefner said. "The same could be true with his other pitches too.
"I think that’s what makes him so good is he’s able to get lefties and righties out at a pretty high clip. It’s all a credit to him. We gave him kind of a road map, but ultimately, he’s the one that’s put in the work and trusted us and trusted himself to go out and do it."
Last season, Garrett's 37.6 percent whiff rate was in the top 3 percent of MLB and his 33.6 percent strikeout rate in the top 4. But Hefner says the key with a pitcher like Garrett, who preys on hitters' aggressiveness, is getting himself in positive counts.
"I think there was times where I fell behind last year and tried to be too perfect," Garrett said. "Right now, it’s just more about going right after guys and doing the best I can."
A lesson learned for Reed Garrett
Garrett believed the foundation began to be set late in the 2023 season after being claimed off waivers from the Orioles. He began last season in a strong place, allowing three earned runs in his first 26 innings while striking out 43 batters.
But as the workload mounted, Garrett began to scuffle, watching his ERA drift up to 3.64 before he landed on the injured list with right elbow inflammation in mid-July.
Garrett said he felt he overexerted himself in the first half of last season, often spending extra time searching for feel on his pitches in between outings, and it caught up to him. But both Garrett and Hefner believe he's in a much better spot this year with the movement of his pitches and the ability to adjust on the fly when something isn't working.
You must be registered for see images attach
"It’s whatever you need to do in order every day to be available," Garrett said. "For me, I need to trust in the fact that my stuff is good enough. If I play catch outside and say, my cutter’s not very good playing catch. I don’t need to panic and keep throwing and keep throwing and keep throwing because hey, I have the ability that it’s going to be there when I need it."
There's a degree of comfort in the way that Garrett is pitching now in the 2025 season. His repertoire helps him handle both sides of the plate, he knows what he needs to do to execute and he's come through in critical moments.
"It could be a tight game with multiple runners on, so one swing of the bat changes the games and because he can get both sides out, we trust him to come in and put the fire out," Hefner said. "He’s not going to get the job done every time. He’s not perfect, but the stuff suggests that he should be able to continue to do what he’s doing and the mentality and the whole package is in a really good spot."
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Reed Garrett: How NY Mets reliever earned high-leverage bullpen spot
Continue reading...
