Daniel Duarte Comes Up In Latest Mets Bullpen Move

[Steve Drumwright]

 

The New York Mets swapped out an arm in the bullpen, selecting the contract of right-hander Daniel Duarte from Triple-A Syracuse and sending down right-hander Joey Gerber.

Duarte is back in the majors for the first time since 2024, when he was with the Minnesota Twins. He made two appearances that year with the Twins after 34 games with the Cincinnati Reds the previous two seasons. Duarte has a 3.99 ERA in 36 games. He had a 14.5% walk rate and 17% strikeout rate, both below average with the bases on balls more concerning as the MLB average is 22.6%.

At Triple-A this year, Duarte has appeared in 12 games with four starts, giving up five runs on 13 hits in 17⅓ innings, with nine walks and 14 strikeouts.

Gerber has been up twice this year, appearing in one game with a trip to the 15-day injured list.

 

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[seawolf17]

I still have no idea why the Mets insist on this wild shuttle of pitchers up and down all the time. And maybe a lot of teams do it, I don't know. But it feels like overkill. What was the point of calling up Gerber, then?

And they had to move Minter to the 60 in order to call him up, which means he (or whoever) just gets cut when Minter comes back next week anyway.

This team. Oy.

[Edgy MD]

Well, they didn't call Gerber up.  He was on the roster already when he got hurt.  They just activated him.

But ... yeah, now they've sent him down.  It is true that all teams do it, but no that doesn't make it right.

I think it was the success of the Dodgers championship of 2020 — and possibly them going back to 2017 — that got teams really addicted to the idea of sustaining a 10-deep bullpen by constantly rotating a cast of guys through to fill the last two spots.

I think it's crazy.

[Frayed Knot]

The answer to 'Why Gerber?' was to be a place-holder, to fill Holmes's roster spot and pitch in relief if needed.

As to why not bring up Duarte instead my guess is that maybe he was unable to pitch this weekend and therefore unable to fill the situation (which never came up as it turns out).

All of which, yeah, kind of suxx for Gerber ... except to the extent that he was making a ML salary for his couple of days.

[Edgy MD]

Another thought is they could have gotten a look at the stuff Gerber showed up with and concluded he wasn't what they were hoping he'd be.

Duarte has given up one run in his last six appearances, covering 10 innings.  He's a multiple-inning guy in that sense, and I imagine they were hoping to exploit that, after burning Sean Manaea for the next several days.