Cranky Adam Ottovino

[Bob Alpacadaca]

Adam Ottovino rips into Carlos Mendoza.

https://nypost.com/2025/11/20/sports/adam-ottavino-goes-off-on-carlos-mendzoas-mets-bullpen-usage/

Comes off sounding kinda bitter. Would mean more coming from someone who did not turn every walk into a double - and gave out a lot of walks.

 

“| think he has no idea what he’s doing when it comes to bullpen guys and how to keep them healthy or even how to care about them at all. There’s no communication there, there’s no feel there, there’s no bedside manner when guys get hurt,” the former Mets and Yankees pitcher said.

Edited November 21, 2025 by Bob Alpacadaca

[metirish]

Ottovino is a zero , bedside manner?

[MFS62]

“| think he has no idea what he’s doing when it comes to bullpen guys and how to keep them healthy or even how to care about them at all.

 

IIRC there were several comments in the CPF about his handling of the bullpen last year. This was the first time I've read of one of the pitchers agreeing with us.

Later

[Edgy MD]

Great offseason fodder.

I have no great respect for Carlos Mendoza and his running of the team, but I do not see the rash of bullpen injuries that Ottavino is referring to — at least, not greater a 'rash' than any team. I certainly do feel that lifting starters ever earlier is a recipe for failure, and when that failure comes to fruition, it is the bullpen guys left unfairly holding the bag. And I feel that the thinking that led them to use more pitchers than any team in history (?) this season was absolutely lazy-minded and counterproductive.

Still, I didn't really see that as a cause or effect of a rash of injuries. Obviously, Minter and Young going down early was a damaging thing that they never seemed to recover from. Was that Mendoza's fault? Was that part of a disproportionate pattern? Dunno.

Also, while I hardly have a front-row seat for what goes on in the clubhouse, Mendoza does not strike me as aloof from his players. But relating to guys in the bullpen is always a different animal, when you have no contact with them during the game, so for all I know, they may come and go, live and die, without an ounce of acknowledgment from Mendoza.

So Mendoza makes for a soft target after a lousy second half, and Otto clearly has an axe to grind. Whether the dots all line up is another matter.

[Frayed Knot]

A. J. Minter pitched 11 innings over 13 appearances, pitched on b-t-b days twice, and was done for the season by April 25th

b-t-b #1: Apr 16 & 17; 15 & 9 pitches

b-t-b #2: Apr 24 & 25 (his final two games); 10 & 10 pitches

Danny Young made 10 appearances for a total of 8-1/3 innings before exiting one day after Minter

He went b-t-b-t-b on Apr 7-8-9 (10th thru 12th games of the season) on 18, 14, 4 pitches

Does someone really want to make a case for ab-, mis-, over- use as the cause for those season ending injuries?

[Edgy MD]

Adam does, it seems.

I imagine he would cite more than those two cases, but even after factoring in the Kranicks and the Buttós, it still may be a tough case to make.

[Gwreck]

Britton and Sammon had an article today looking into it:

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6826569/2025/11/21/mets-mendoza-bullpen-adam-ottavino/

 

[bLOCKQUOTE]• Coming off hip surgery and a question mark all spring for the Opening Day roster, Minter was used 13 times in the first 27 games of the season before injuring his lat.

• Kranick hadn’t pitched in the majors since 2022; through Memorial Day, he was on pace for just under 100 innings in relief.

• Entering 2024, Núñez had thrown 90 innings over the prior four years (thanks to COVID and Tommy John surgery). As he started to excel in the majors, he threw 27 innings over 47 games — a pace of 93 relief innings stretched over a full season. After an elbow strain required a month on the injured list, he was used for five outs in a blowout in his first game back. He missed the rest of the season, was delayed into spring training, and eventually required another Tommy John surgery this season.

• Drew Smith had already appeared four times in the previous week when he was called on to replace an ejected Edwin Díaz on June 23, 2024, against the Cubs. Smith got two more outs that day; he hasn’t pitched professionally since, thanks to Tommy John surgery.

• Although Brooks Raley did remain healthy this season, it was eye-opening that the veteran appeared in 30 of the team’s last 63 games following a 14-month absence recovering from his own Tommy John surgery[/bLOCKQUOTE]

[Fman99]

If half of the bullpen didn't suck he wouldn't have to work the other half until their elbows exploded

[metsmarathon]

Doesn’t the pitching coach factor into any of this…?

[Edgy MD]

Of course he does. And the bullpen coach. And various people in the front office. But Otto is indicting Mendoza.

That does not make him wrong, of course, but if I am doing the interviewing, my first followup question is going to be about Jeremy Hefner, Desi Druschel, José Rosado, Jack Bredeson, Jono Armold, etc. — to find out where the culture is working and where it is breaking down, so we have a full picture of who we might want to exile and who we might want to bank on. Does he really want to see the whole pitching side of the organization burned or is his beef with Mendoza?

If the latter, how much of that beef is about policy and how much about personality? It seems a little of both with Adam. And in a game where both teams want to win, and injuries fall like snow upon the living and the dead, good policies and good intentions can still produce bad outcomes.

It is challenging to hear voices in 2025 decry onerous workload burdens, when I cry out that managers are working with neurotic obsession trying to spare pitchers the sort of workloads that could help them win. But as long as games still have nine innings, when you spare one guy, somebody at the other end has to pick up the slack. it all depends on what side of the golden handshake you live on.

That said, I fully believe that bullpenning is a less onerous life if guys are called on for longer appearances less frequently. Two to three innings twice a week gets more out of a guy than one inning four times a week, while (to my thinking) taxes him less.

[MFS62]

Two to three innings twice a week gets more out of a guy than one inning four times a week, while (to my thinking) taxes him less.

 

Seems logical, because the pitcher would only have to warm up once or twice in that first scenario, but would have at least two other warm-up sessions in the second. And the number of pitches thrown in a warm-up session is more than typically thrown in one inning.

Later

[rchurch314]

Mets (as an organization) mostly have no idea what they're doing with pitchers. Hefner was well liked, which doesn't mean good, and had one good trick with guys like Peterson that worked out, which might not have even been Hefner's doing.

He's probably got a point, in the "where there's smoke, there's fire" way, but mostly this is just whiny ****.