TODAY: Raley spoke with Newsday’s Tim Healey and other reporters today, and revealed that while his situation is “a little more complex” and that he doesn’t “know all the details,” he is dealing with bone spurs and some level of UCL damage in his left elbow. Raley will meet with Dr. Keith Meister on Tuesday to explore surgical and non-surgical options.
MAY 2: Mets reliever Brooks Raley is facing a possible long-term absence after testing revealed “at least fraying” in an elbow ligament, reports Joel Sherman of the New York Post. Sherman writes that Raley and the team are currently weighing whether he’ll need to undergo surgery.
Raley landed on the 15-day injured list with what the team called elbow inflammation two weeks ago. Manager Carlos Mendoza was initially optimistic that the left-hander would return around the time he was first eligible. Subsequent imaging has evidently revealed the issue to be more serious than the team first believed. Mendoza told reporters this afternoon that Raley’s recovery timeline was being pushed back, albeit without providing much in the way of specifics (via the MLB.com injury tracker).
Acquired from the Rays over the 2022-23 offseason, Raley has been a quality bullpen piece in Queens. He turned in a 2.80 ERA over a career-high 54 2/3 innings last season. He punched out more than a quarter of opposing hitters and found success against batters of either handedness. The Mets fielded some trade interest on Raley last summer but elected to hold him and trigger a $6.5MM option for this season.
The first three weeks could hardly have gone much better. Raley rattled off seven scoreless innings with nine strikeouts and only five baserunners allowed (two hits and three walks). He was credited with four holds in eight appearances and was among the club’s highest-leverage arms. Depending on the results of upcoming testing, he could be out for an extended stretch — perhaps the entire season.
That would leave the Mets rather short on experienced left-handed bullpen depth. Free agent pickup Jake Diekman is their top healthy option. The veteran has huge swing-and-miss ability, though his results have been somewhat inconsistent throughout his career thanks to well below-average control. Josh Walker and Tyler Jay have seen limited action, while recent call-up Danny Young made his team debut in this afternoon’s win. Walker was recently optioned to Triple-A Syracuse, while Jay was outrighted off the 40-man roster and is back in the minors as well.
Depth starter Joey Lucchesi has fared better against left-handed hitters and could theoretically work out of the bullpen. The same is true of David Peterson once he returns from hip surgery that will shelve him at least into late May. (Peterson’s overall platoon splits are neutral, but his strikeout and walk rates have been much better against southpaws.) Still, this looks like an area the Mets could look to upgrade from outside the organization if Raley misses a significant amount of time.
A long-term absence would be particularly unfortunate for Raley as well. He turns 36 next month and will be a free agent next winter. With a 2.58 ERA and 27.3% strikeout rate since the start of 2022, he has a good chance at a solid two-year deal if he’s fully healthy. It’s too soon to tell how his market might be affected by this injury, but any kind of surgery (particularly if he’s out into 2025) would be a tough blow.
Damn he was off to such a good start
Hope he recovers quick. Really reliable BP arm
Crap.
“Acquired from the Rays…”
Yep. Sounds about right.
The guy was exceptional last year, so it was a great deal for the Mets. Hopefully he’s not out for too long because he’s off to a great start this year as well.
The Mets got a lefty specialist on a 2-year contract that was no bargain, a replacement level lefty for his career who put up an ordinary 3.68 FIP in 2023, which is nothing of note for a specialist, in return for the then-22 year old Keyshawn Askew, who is now getting the hang of AA ball as a STARTER while K’ing 12 per 9 across the minors, suppressing HR at an excellent rate, and giving up very few hits per 9.
It would have been a horrifying deal even if the Mets had contended in 2023. Since they didn’t contend (with the oldest rotation in the history of the game, no less–what a surprise) it was also cataclysmically ignorant, the sort of thing only a billionaire playing at being a GM could perpetrate.
This is the kind of deal where, when you hear of it, you just can’t speak for a while.
Give me a break. Deals like that happen all the time. And the guy is in the minor leagues so you have no idea what he’s going to become. Armchair GM.
God Raley is so overrated. Not bad as a garbage time reliever but hes not ment for high leverage situations. People who just look at stats don’t know anything. I use my eyes. My eyes tell me that hes no good. At best he’s below average
Maybe get your eyes tested then?
you dont want to see the relievers his “eyes” say are good relievers.
One had a hits batman streak if i remember right. even carried it into the minors too. when he got sent down
another its putting up the worst number i have even heard of in baseball and that not even major league level … its in the minors. Has almost double the number walks than he does strike outs.
@Roll Fujinami would best their third best reliever if he was up in the majors right now. You act like Triple-A results matter. They don’t. He can figure it out in the majors, hes that good
@LFG
fine if you dont want to include minor leagues although someone who has not established anything close to decent in the minors or the majors can figure it out on in the majors is pretty weird. He also had a full season and hasnt figured it out and even worse against a worse competition. Btw did you “see” his last game … 2 er and couldnt even get the ball over the plate Kinda tough to be successful if you cant throw a strike. Guess your hoping he only gets angel hernandez sized strike zone.
lets look at major league 7 ERA and actually a negative 2 WAR he wasnt even replacement level. You needed to good players just to be average with him. He seems like another Kei Igawa
funny he eerily matches up well to another reliever the mets had …. might have heard of him Dominic Leone you were a huge fan of his if i remember right. Couple of good outings then gets blown up … rinse and repeat.
and if triple a results dont matter why are they calling up christian scott and not luis moreno? Also no reason to keep senga, “the best AAA catcher” because AAA results dont matter.
@Roll I did not like Leone, I thought he was awful. With that said, Fujinami stats from last year are skewed. He wasn’t fit to be a starter, which is when most of his damage occurred. He also had to get used to the MLB baseball, which is bigger than the Japanese ball. Guys who through over 100mphs don’t just grow on trees. He doesn’t sling it over like Miguel Castro either. When Fujinami gets his chance you can come back and admit you were wrong, hes going to dominate the MLB
leone was sarcasm i guess i should have said drew smith but fuji wasnt good enough to be at that level.
and if he does i will admit i was wrong which i have done
will you do the same? …. history proves you wont … you have yet to admit to being wrong and been wrong many times over. most times you seem to just disappear and pretend it never happened.
nowadays high 90’s and hitting 100+ with no control and never getting it together is actually not that uncommon (throwing or slinging) but many either dont last long or dont make it to the majors.
@Roll I’m never wrong. Bring up some examples are I’ll concede. I can tell you what I have been right about in the last 3 years. Mets sigining Tommy Pham, Gary Sanchez, Manaea, Luis Rojas being awful, Billy InEppler being awful, the Justin Verlander signing I said was stupid, opting into Carlos Carrasco’s option I thought was one of the worst moves they made, Drew Smith sucking in clutch time, Miguel Castro being awful, Mets getting rid of Brandon Drury in order to make room for Gsellman was awful, Betances I knew was going to be awful, etc. There is more but those are just the ones off the top of my head
First Gary Sanchez is a streaky hitter and also horrible in crunch time (which by your measurement of lindor and smith is a horrible player). Damn near all his homeruns last year were in blow outs or against relievers of the level of your boy Leone 🙂
Drew smith is another which you are incorrect on things you say about him … you said he always lets in runners that why his era is low when in fact last year he had one of the lowest if not the lowest inherited runner percent on the team. Even lower than the closers. Funny how you say he is the worst reliever in all of baseball less than a week now its only in crunch time.
Jeff brigham being a great reliever who literally plunked a batter in 5 or 6 games straight between mlb and his minors stint and eventually would only be used in blowouts.
Raley being an awful reliever you said last year as well. Which he was solid reliever.
I still remember the hader trade you said was horrible for the brewers and that turned into a top 2 or 3 catcher that isnt arb elgible, a closer that just hit his first year eligibility, another back end starter plus more. You even had it as vientos for hader straight up. It was sooo obscenely bad.
Eppler while i dont think he was a great not even really good gm he actually did well this past offseason and every baseball person said it was a B+ to A for what he brought back at the deadline except you.
i could keep going with your bad trades ideas, glass eye assessment, and no concept of actual baseball but you will make up some excuse im sure with some crazy your eye is always right and nothing to back it up and still not admit you were wrong.
Never dominated Japan and will not dominate the mlb. Get your eyes checked
dont worry moley they not coming back to this thread they have been proven wrong even using their own logic .. pretty sure they close their eyes and plug their ears going lalalalala never happened.
His stupid eyes told him Fujinami is good.
:Subsequent imaging
has evidently revealed
the issue to be more serious
than the team first believed. ”
This is the Mets’ Injury Mantra.
^^^ This is a classic Met fan moan. Oh woe is me.
The poster is not a Mets fan, just an observer of Mets-ish phenomena.
It’s not exclusive to the Mets where a player is sidelined for joint inflammation and the team take a wait-and-see approach along with further testing.
The latest update seems much better:
May 3: Second MRI shows improvement for Raley
Left-handed reliever Brooks Raley, battling elbow inflammation, got a encouraging result after a second MRI, and appears likely to avoid surgery, Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. Raley, who began the season with seven scoreless innings in eight appearances, will continue to increase the intensity in his throwing program.
“When he first went down, we thought it was going to be a quick ramp-up in 15 days, but that wasn’t the case,’’ Mendoza said. “It’s going to take a lot longer than we anticipated. He’ll continue throwing. The MRI showed the inflammation is getting better.’’
P.s. LOLMETS
Who??
Pitch Clock. They are pitching to quickly. Yes max effort and selection matter as well, but the speed and tempo of intermittent rest are effected. Resulting in quicker stress and arm usage. Fatigue as well resulting in injury.
Well, if this turns into surgery, MLB will now be on pace for 65 this season, and it’s not slowing down.
Wow 65, my theory is the Pitch Clock. I wonder what will come in the next few years.
That’s up substantially from the 2022 total of 28. Last season was 31, but with Brash’s surgery yesterday, it brings this season’s total to 14 already (only 24% into the season).
I’m not sure what actions, if any, MLB will take until they can prove causation.
I think it would have to be the Union, with a separate study. Not sure what the legality of that is. I don’t see why they couldn’t. But MLB is stringent in their shorter games point of view. They want them faster for the Modern Audience ? Akin to the NBA. 2.5 hrs max I guess. And more home runs, as we’ve seen them manipulate the balls in the recent past. But more honers means more money for players. In a weird way I think it’s going to take a collective partnership between the Union and Owners to address the issue.
I am actually curious about something If you dont include surgeries are arm related injuries over the minimum stay up from last year as well? Like a Megill or Senga. this year for example. I would assume yes but dont know where to even look that up.
I think that’s a safe bet. Without having the time to delve too deeply tonight, the pitchers on the IL for the four previous seasons’ Opening Day were (2023) 122, (2022) 96, (2021) 88, and (2019) 85. However, the 2024 season began with 132 pitchers on the IL.
Obviously, one may assume that there are more pitchers on the IL because there are more players on the IL as a whole; but it is a more concerning trend than that. Pitchers are making up an increasing percentage of the IL players as well; for instance, in 2019 pitchers comprised ~ 69% of the IL players. This season, pitchers comprise ~ 80% of the players on the IL as of Opening Day.
Thank You for sharing the info. Very helpful to see what’s been happening the last handful of seasons with pitchers. Scary, this is starting to look like the concussion issue within the NFL we had some years back. Obviously different, but still alarming.