Mets Eyeing Left-Handed Relievers

The Mets, like just about every club in the game, are looking to strengthen their bullpen this winter. They’ll pursue a wide variety of options, but lefties Alex Vesia and Tim Hill are among their early targets, reports Will Sammon of The Athletic. Vesia’s market is particularly competitive, Sammon notes, with around half the league expressing genuine interest to this point.

Joel Sherman of the New York Post adds that the Mets have also spoken with the reps for lefty Darwinzon Hernández, who’s eyeing a major league comeback after a strong three-year run in Japan.  SNY’s Chelsea Janes, meanwhile, notes that the Mets have talked to Brooks Raley about a potential reunion.

Left-handed relief is a natural area of focus for president of baseball operations David Stearns and his staff. The Mets don’t currently have an established left-handed relief option on the 40-man roster. Nate Lavender was terrific through 21 1/3 innings as a rookie (1.66 ERA, 32.9 K%, 5.1 BB%), but he’ll be 27 in January and has no prior big league track record. Cionel Pérez pitched well in 29 1/3 innings after signing a minor league deal over the summer, but he’d previously been cut loose after posting a 6.19 ERA in Washintgon. Pérez had a pair of nice seasons with the O’s in 2022-23 but carries a 5.30 ERA in the three seasons since.

The only other lefties on the 40-man roster right now are 30-year-old Jefry Yan and starters Sean Manaea and Zac Thornton. Yan allowed 11 earned runs in 20 1/3 innings during his MLB debut this past season. Manaea split time between the ‘pen and rotation but is ticketed for the latter right now. Thornton impressed in his first 15 MLB starts and has an inside track on a 2027 rotation spot, though that could change if the Mets bring in multiple established rotation arms. They’re among the clubs who already have a meeting set with prized free agent Tarik Skubal and will surely pursue other names on the open market and via trade.

Vesia, 31 in April, is one of the top relief arms on the offseason market. He’s been a dominant force in the Dodgers’ bullpen dating back to 2021, logging a combined 2.66 ERA with a 32.6% strikeout rate in 328 innings. His 11.2% walk rate (13.5% in 2026) could stand to improve, but Vesia misses bats in droves despite lacking premium velocity. His heater averages only 92.1 mph but has plus spin and is fired from an extreme over-the-top angle, creating elite levels of induced vertical break — the trait that makes fastballs appear to “rise” in the eyes of opposing hitters. (In reality, the pitch simply drops far less than one would expect from a typical heater.)

Vesia’s track record gives him a shot at a three-year deal and should lock him in for at least two years at a healthy annual rate. It’s easy to imagine the Dodgers bringing him back, but the Phillies, Pirates and Yankees are among the teams also known to be specifically eyeing left-handed relief.

Hill, who’ll turn 37 in February, has spent the past two and a half seasons in New York — but over in the Bronx. He’s coming off a down season that saw him record a 4.60 ERA in 58 2/3 innings. The soft-tossing side-armer yielded a career-worst 1.84 homers per nine frames with the Yankees in 2026.

Hill also posted the lowest strikeout rate in baseball, just 10.4%, but that’s not as alarming as it might be for others. His funky delivery has always meant a game centered far more on inducing weak contact than on missing bats. Hill hasn’t posted a strikeout rate north of 14% since 2022 but nonetheless carries a sub-4.00 ERA in that time. Opponents averaged just 88.9 mph off the bat against Hill this year, and they posted a negative launch angle for a third straight season. No pitcher with even five innings pitched this year topped Hill’s gargantuan 68.8% ground-ball rate. And among the 539 pitchers who tossed at least 20 innings in 2026, no one was within five percentage points of that grounder rate.

As one might expect for a sidearm reliever with well below-average velocity, Hill carries substantial platoon splits. He dominates lefties but has never been able to get right-handers out with much consistency. That was particularly true in 2026, when righties pummeled him at a .293/.365/.543 pace — the second worst results he’s ever posted against right-handed hitters.

Hill’s age and down results in 2026 should relegate him to one-year contracts, but his atypical delivery, league-leading grounder capabilities and perennially excellent command (5.4% walk rate in ’26, career 7%) will lead to plenty of interest.

Hernandez, 30 next month, was once a well-regarded prospect in the Red Sox system. He missed bats in droves during brief big league looks but also showed egregiously poor command, evidenced by a career 17.7% walk rate in the majors. He’s posted just a 7.9% walk rate over his past three seasons with the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, however, while also fanning 31.6% of his opponents en route to a 2.36 earned run average.

Raley is a known commodity for the Mets and their fans. He spent the bulk of the 2023-26 seasons in Queens but was traded to the Phillies over the summer as the Mets embarked on a deadline sell-off. He struggled through 11 1/3 innings as a Phillie and wasn’t included on their Wild Card roster, but Raley had a 1.96 ERA in 41 1/3 innings with the Mets this season and carries an overall 2.76 mark in 140 frames dating back to the 2023 season.