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New York Mets Trade For Lefty Reliever, DFA Alex Torres

By Kenneth Teape

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The New York Mets continued to revamp their roster late Tuesday night as they acquired Eric O’Flaherty from the Oakland Athletics, who was recently designated for assignment. To make room for him, they had a player of their own designated for assignment as well, as Alex Torres was sent packing.

It turns out the New York Mets are not done fine tuning their roster, as they completed a trade late Tuesday night with the Oakland Athletics. The Mets are set to acquire left-handed relief pitcher Eric O’Flaherty and cash consideration in exchange for a player to be named later.

O’Flaherty was designated for assignment recently by the Athletics, so the Mets jumped in to acquire him. He will be taking the place of Alex Torres in the Mets’ bullpen, who the Mets designated for assignment following their 5-1 victory Tuesday night over the Miami Marlins. One person who was all for the trade was Tyler Clippard, who was teammates with O’Flaherty a little more than a week ago before the Mets acquired him in a trade as well.

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“Eric’s coming off Tommy John from last year, and I feel like it took him a little while to get settled in throughout the season. The last two or three weeks of playing with him in Oakland, he looked like himself. His velocity was one or two ticks higher than it was previously in the year. His sinker was back. He was throwing sliders for strikes. And it was the Eric O’Flaherty that I saw in Atlanta, as opposed to earlier in the year when he was just kind of scuffling, not really throwing strikes.”

The Eric O’Flaherty from Atlanta that Clippard refers to is someone the Mets are very familiar with. As a member of the Atlanta Braves, O’Flaherty became one of the best setup men in baseball. In five seasons with the Braves, O’Flaherty registered a 1.99 ERA and 1.15 WHIP in 295 games and 249 ⅓ innings. He was even stronger against the Mets, pitching to a 1.69 ERA against them in his career, so they have seen first hand the dominance he is capable of.

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That dominance has been nonexistent though with the Athletics this season. O’Flaherty was in his second season with the Athletics, and second removed from Tommy John surgery. But, the results were not pretty, as he had a 5.91 ERA in 25 appearances with the Athletics in 2015, prompting them to designate him for assignment.

While the ERA is ghastly, there is one thing O’Flaherty has been able to do this season, and that is get out left-handed batters. Lefties are hitting an abysmal .186 against him this season, getting on base at a .286 clip and slugging .209.

That is enough reason for the Mets to acquire him, as they have lacked a lefty specialist in their bullpen since Jerry Blevins went down April. Blevins has resumed throwing recently, but the Mets are rolling and cannot afford to wait for Blevins any longer. So, according to assistant general manager John Ricco they wanted to make sure they covered themselves.

“We’re in a position now where we’re trying to win every day. Here was an opportunity to get a veteran lefty, we’ve seen a lot of him over the years with the Braves and he’s having a real good year against left-handed hitters, so he kind of checked all the boxes.” – John Ricco, Mets Assistant General Manager

O’Flaherty’s ability to get lefties out will be something the Mets and Terry Collins welcome with open arms, as it is a role Torres was unable to fill. Torres has been extremely ineffective since being acquired from the San Diego Padres prior to the season. His ERA is a respectable 3.10 on the season, but he has put way too many men on base, struggling too often with his control as he walked 26 batters in only 34 ⅓ innings. He also hasn’t been overly effective against lefties, as they hit .268 against him on the season.

The Mets are hoping that O’Flaherty will be able to make it to Florida in time for their game tonight in the series finale against the Miami Marlins. First pitch is scheduled at 7:10 PM ET, but the Mets will not need O’Flaherty until closer to 9-9:30 if everything goes according to plan.

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