Craig Kimbrel Is Justifying His Spot On the Mets' Roster

Back in the offseason, the New York Mets signed legendary closer and future Hall of Famer Craig Kimbrel to a minor-league deal with an invitation to spring training. When he didn’t make the team out of camp, people started to question whether the experiment was worth it and whether he would choose to stay and win a spot.

He stuck around and, on April 11, the Mets called him up to see if he could, at least, replicate the form he showed in a brief stint with the Houston Astros after the Atlanta Braves designated him for assignment last year; in Houston, Kimbrel posted a 2.45 ERA in 11 innings, striking out 16 and walking six.

That kind of reliever certainly has a home in a major-league bullpen. Is Kimbrel still of at least that caliber?

Can Craig Kimbrel Still Get MLB Hitters Out?

The Mets knew that the soon-to-be 38-year-old wasn’t a flamethrower anymore, but they believed he could still get MLB hitters out and, so far, they have been proven right. In seven games and 6.1 frames, the right-hander has a 4.26 ERA that comes with a much better 2.04 FIP. He has fanned eight and walked three, with a fastball averaging 93.1 mph. That’s a bit slower than last year’s 93.5 mph on average, but not catastrophically so.

Can the Mets, whose bullpen has actually produced a decent 3.69 ERA that ranks ninth in baseball, keep counting on Kimbrel being a serviceable MLB-caliber reliever? Well, yes, but it depends on expectations.

If you are expecting Kimbrel to return to being the pitcher that terrorized hitters and posted ERAs below 3.00 year in and year out while flirting with a 40 percent strikeout rate, you will be disappointed. If you lower the bar a bit and simply look for someone who can bridge the gap from the rotation to the leverage guys, then we may have a winner on our hands.

Kimbrel can still miss some bats, but there are a few developments to pay attention to. His four-seamer currently has a 29.7 percent whiff rate, which is not bad, and his sweeper is getting swings and misses at a 50 percent rate, which is excellent but likely to go down a bit with a larger sample. The knuckle curve, one of his signature pitches, still hasn’t generated a whiff, though.

It’s just 6.1 innings. The sample is tiny, almost too small to matter. But it’s worth monitoring that knuckle curve and its ability to miss bats, as Kimbrel’s success this year could hinge on it. It's important to note, however, that he can still pump his four-seamer up to the 96 mph range up in the zone when he needs to:

Kimbrel Is Allowing Too Many Line Drives

Another important development around Kimbrel is his groundball and fly ball ratios. From 2011 to 2015, the man with 440 saves was a groundball and strikeout behemoth. Then, from 2016 to this point, he morphed into a fly ball inducer, also with lots of punchouts, of course.

This year, he has given up 0.60 groundballs for every ball in the air. That’s actually not that far from the trend that started in 2016, but the problem is that he is surrendering lots of line drives at the moment. A 40 percent line drive rate is just too high to think he can get away with it over a long stretch of games, and if he wants to achieve sustained success this year with the Mets, it will have to come down.

If the contact in the air starts going further, Kimbrel is going to become unplayable. For now, all things considered, the profile is good enough for Kimbrel to be a good middle reliever, and that’s not bad considering age and other circumstances. Overall, the Mets should be happy with what they have gotten out of their former nemesis.