The Mets have designated right-hander Geoff Hartlieb for assignment, per a club announcement. His spot on the roster goes to lefty Brad Hand, whose previously reported waiver claim has now been officially announced.
Hartlieb, 27, was claimed off waivers out of the Pirates organization earlier in the summer and appeared in just three big league games with the Mets, He was tagged for seven runs through 4 1/3 innings in that tiny sample. All in all, he has a 7.46 ERA in 66 1/3 big league innings dating back to 2019. He’s also had a rough go of it in 13 Triple-A frames with the Mets, which marks a departure from a generally excellent track record in the upper minors.
His struggles since being claimed by the Mets notwithstanding, Hartlieb carries a career 3.03 ERA in parts of six minor league seasons — including a 3.18 mark in 62 1/3 innings at the Triple-A level. He’s fanned just shy of 29 percent of the opponents he’s faced in parts of two Triple-A seasons and posted a very strong 56.3 percent ground-ball rate in that time as well.
The Mets will now either place Hartlieb on outright waivers or release waivers in the coming days. In addition to his strong numbers in the upper minors, Hartlieb has a minor league option remaining beyond the current season, so he could give another club some depth should they wish to place a claim.
For Hartlieb, the strike zone is like Atlantis–it’s supposedly out there, but he has no first-hand knowledge of the place.
Hartlieb is tied with Neil Ramirez for the worst reliever they have had in the past 10 years. Hartlieb walked the bases loaded and then proceeded to walk a reliever whos never swung the bat. Good riddance!
Unfortunately, the way the game is managed today, guys like him will keep logging MLB innings. At least until managers realize that pushing a good starter an extra inning is better than having to resort to Hartlieb later.
Or, maybe the manager and executives are prioritizing keeping familiar pitchers healthy, and developing less familiar ones.
No hard evidence that today’s strategy is actually keeping pitchers healthy. None at all.
@Cosmo2
Exactly about today’s strategy with pitchers. And all of us ole timers see plenty of examples of legends that pitched many years logging in many innings without arm problems. They built their arms up, pitched intelligently to get outs, and could log in 250 innings and 120 pitches per game for a number of years in their careers. We still even see it with some of the current pitchers (last 25 years or so) that do the same thing.
@cosmo2: There’s also no hard evidence that the strategies of yesteryear were better at keeping pitchers healthy, either. This has to do with a huge variable, and that is how pitchers have altered the way they pitch. Back then, it was more about location and durability. Now, it’s more about power and spin rate.
It’s a bit of a chicken and the egg scenario, imo. Are current pitchers throwing harder and putting more strain on their arm because they know they only need to go 80-100 pitches (or 5-6 innings)? Or are they only able to last that long because they’re throwing harder and putting more strain on their arms?
I don’t think the answer is to let pitchers throw even deeper into games. There will be even more injuries. I think this is just the way the game is going to be. Every team now seems to have a fleet of guys throwing 95+ when even 20 years ago, it was somewhat anomalous.
@Marlins: And there’s also tons of guys from back in the day who blew their arms out young. And there were also very few guys who were throwing 95-100 with any regularity and very few guys putting the type of spin on the ball that today’s pitchers do.
Pitching itself has changed. If you want to argue that pitchers should tamp down the velocity and focus more on durability, I can get with that. But if you think the answer is just that pitchers should throw more innings because they used to back in the day and some pitchers threw 250+ with ease, I disagree.
Again, there is no evidence whatsoever that letting pitchers pitch deeper into games causes more injury. At least not in terms of innings pitched; so why not use the strategy that keeps better pitchers in longer rather than resorting to inferior relievers since either way seems to result in the same amount of injuries?
The truth of the matter is that many pitchers today wouldn’t have become major leaguers in the 60s. For example, and there are many, deGrom and Buehler, arguably the top top two pitchers in the NL, both had TJ surgery early on. deGrom had ulnar repositioning surgery in 2016. Neither would have been possible in Koufax’s day. Koufax needed TJ surgery but it had not been “invented” at the time.
@rct
The thing that’s being missed is that, while you are correct about pitchers not throwing as hard, many pitchers in the past learned how to pitch instead of airing it out trying to blow their velocity passed hitters. Pitchers knew how to get outs beyond the strikeout by inducing weak contact. And pitchers had control to locate pitches. Somewhere along the lines, some dimwit came to the conclusion that the high velocity guys, who aired it out, were the pitchers to go with. Thus, we have these hard throwers, who last only a few innings, who don’t know how to get an out in any other way but the strikeout. We end up with guys who get hurt easier, many can’t find the strikezone, and run up their pitch counts to where they have 100 pitches around the 6th inning. This ain’t working.. And the few pitchers that can give innings and actually pitch are showing that a pitcher can be “ole school” and still be elite and healthy. If we went with more guys that can actually pitch, we wouldn’t be where we are with this 5 inning flame throwers with no control and a gajillion arm injuries.
The way things are now, a guy like Greg Maddux wouldn’t even be scouted. Neither would Phil Niekro.
Dodger-Koufax was the best pitcher that I ever saw.He owned the Pirates.On the other hand the Pirates were the only team that Drysdale had a losing record against.
It is interesting to note that Koufax could not hit the broad side of a barn for five years.
Marlins-Correctamundo.What amazes me though is that the knuckleheads making the decisions do not realize that the modern pitchers by and large end up losing almost half their careers to injury but still get paid for it!
I am well aware of the many misadventures of Koufax. The primary reason was crazy bonus baby rule back in the Mid 50s. Because he signed in excess of threshold he wasn’t allowed to develop his skills in the minors like he would have today but had to be on the 25 man roster or be exposed to be lost to another team (kinda like the way the Dodgers lost Clemente to the Bucs).
That bonus baby rule sucked
Which us Pirates fans greatly appreciate to this day.
Not managers but front offices who tell their managers that they MUST remove a starter after X number of hitters or pitches thrown or innings or who is coming up when or some magic formula based on the above. If the manager follows orders and it goes wrong, it’s not his fault as far as the organization is concerned. It’s probably not the analytics department’s fault because they are convinced the right move was made but it just didn’t work out even though the analytics department is just crunching past numbers and does not have real-time data on how well or how poorly the starter is throwing.
Luis Rojas is an awful manager. Hes pulled Stroman and Walker multiple times this year when they were doing well only to bring in a reliever that blew the game. Don’t make excuses for him, hes a grown man. Hes not a good manager. Next your gonna tell me the front office makes the lineups too. He doesn’t know what hes doing. His only redeeming quality are his defensive shifts, and thats misleading due to the Mets having Lindor, Peraza, Guillorme, and Villar playing most of the season in the infield
Marc, you’re 100% correct. I should have said manageMENT. The orders come from on high.
The front office DOES make the lineups usually. Not defending Rojas, just saying.
Hand is a btter pitcher than he showed with the Jays. Mets could use him if he shakes off the doldroms.
He’s like a 20 WAR player! More lost WAR for the 3rd place B team from NY
To Mets’ fans; so, you claim a player from the Pirates…yes, the Pirates…who had a high era & thus was waived by the Pirates…yes, the Pirates. Did you expect him to don the baby blue pinstripes & suddenly be Tom Seaver? You got exactly what you claimed. I’m surprised you didn’t pick up Polanco!
I don’t think anyone was surprised that he wasn’t very good. He was a backend relief arm that’s all. Whom exactly do you think you are arguing with?
Dcahen-You can rag on the Pirates all you want but the truth is that almost every team has a pitcher like this who cannot hit water if he falls out of a floating boat.
Hartlieb started out as an outfielder but was converted when his arm and pitching velocity showed promise.Just goes to prove that any pitcher or position player needs to play there for many years in order to learn how to play the position.