The Mets announced that they have re-signed right-hander Buddy Carlyle to a minor league contract with an invite to big league Spring Training. Carlyle is a client of Octagon.
Caryle, 37, made a surprising return to he Majors at age 36 last season after a two-year absence and fired 31 dominant innings out of the New York bullpen. Though his heater averaged just 90.5 mph, Carlyle still punched out an average of 8.1 hitters per nine innings versus just 1.5 walks per nine, and he did an excellent, albeit possibly unsustainable job of keeping the ball in the yard.
In addition to excelling with the Mets last season, Carlyle has posted strong minor league results over the past three seasons and should have a chance at cracking the Mets’ bullpen once again. All of this comes despite the fact that through his age-33 season, Carlyle had authored just a 5.58 ERA with 7.0 K/9 and 3.6 BB/9 in 253 1/3 big league innings. Nonetheless, metrics such as FIP (2.65), xFIP (3.21) and SIERA (2.82) all feel that last season’s small sample of success was a bit more than pure smoke and mirrors, though skepticism is warranted until he can prove his effectiveness over a longer period.
