Mets’ Edwin Diaz back on track after missing entire 2023 season: ‘I think we will get the same guy’

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Rest assured, New York Mets fans, Edwin Diaz is giving you want: The trumpets.

“If I changed ‘Narco’ I think I would get in trouble with the fans,” Diaz said Monday at Clover Field after a bullpen session.

In 2022, it felt like everything went right for the Mets until the very end. Last year, everything went wrong and the end couldn’t come soon enough. Now, the Mets are beginning spring training ahead of what the club expects to be a “competitive” resetting season.

Diaz is now healthy and ready for a return after sitting out 2023 with a torn patellar tendon. He suffered the injury in the World Baseball Classic last March and the Mets were never the same.

“We would have been better last year, I think, if I was pitching,” Diaz said. “That season was tough for all of us. The injuries and everything else, it was a tough season. “I think if I was there, I would have been able to help them to win more games. So I hope this year to be there with [the team] and make the playoffs. That’s our goal.”

Diaz is eagerly awaiting the day that he’ll finally get to run out from the Citi Field bullpen to “Narco” once again. So, too, is David Stearns, the architect of the 2024 team. The 38-year-old former Milwaukee Brewers president of baseball operations has had All-Star closers like Josh Hader at his disposal. He knows that having an elite reliever in the bullpen can help a team earn more than a few extra wins every season.

“It makes everything so much easier,” Stearns said. “I was incredibly fortunate during my time in Milwaukee to have really good closers throughout the tenure there. It makes building the rest of your ‘pen and allowing those guys to feel comfortable in their roles a heck of a lot easier. If Edwin continues on this progression and he’s able to anchor the back end of the ‘pen, that certainly makes the rest of the puzzle fit a little bit more neatly.”

Diaz wasn’t just the best closer in baseball in 2022, he was historically good. He thinks he can replicate that season all over again, which would be a huge boon to a team that floundered without him.

“I think we will get the same guy,” Diaz said. “I know my body. I know how I have to attack the hitters and how to make my pitch. I think I’ve got a good idea of what I have to do to be successful.”

Stearns, however, is not putting those same expectations on Diaz.

“That was a really high bar for anyone, 2022 was a historic level of production for a Major League pitcher,” Stearns said. “But I would expect that Edwin — based on his health and who is as a person and his determination — to be a very good major league closer for us.”

Stearns rebuilt the bullpen around Diaz. The Mets’ baseball ops boss felt that he could build around the closer, who will be 30 in March, given his health.

There were no setbacks in Diaz’s rehab. He was healthy enough to pitch at the end of last season and likely would have if the Mets had made the playoffs. He’s throwing bullpen sessions and will throw live batting practice next week. He has yet to get into any defensive drills but he doesn’t expect to be limited when he does.

Once Grapefruit League play starts, Diaz will continue to work on the back fields, something he prefers to do until he is ready to get into a game.

Stearns is confident that the group is deeper than it was last year, in part because Diaz adds a huge element that was missing last season. There are questions about the rotation, which means the Mets need all of the relief pitching they can get.

“I think we’ve gotten deeper as a club,” Stearns said. “That’s something that probably hurt us a little bit last year. When some of the guys at the top of the roster went down, it was tougher for this team to backfill. And look, when you have superstar players who have injuries, it’s always going to be tough to backfill. But I do think we’re positioned well right now to handle the inevitable uncertainty that a major league season brings.”

Stearns is not shying away from his belief that this is a playoff team. With Diaz back, it starts to look a little more likely.

After a year away, one of the best closers in baseball is ready to let himself remember what it was like to electrify a city with ninth-inning heroics and his beloved trumpets.

“When I come out to pitch I can’t wait to see the moment,” Diaz said. “And to feel it.”

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