NEW YORK -- The Mets’ bullpen carousel continued Thursday with the addition of right-hander Dan Hammer, an electric arm with deep-seated control issues.
Hammer, a 28-year-old whom the Mets signed to a Minor League contract in March, throws in the upper 90s but walked 17 batters over 20 1/3 innings with Triple-A Syracuse. Still, Hammer relied on his wipeout stuff to produce a 1.77 ERA at that level anyway. It’s been a similar story for Hammer throughout a seven-year Minor League career, which has seen him strike out 10.8 batters per nine innings but walk 7.3.
“It’s really good stuff,” Mets interim manager Andy Green said. “We saw it in spring right when he showed up. The cutter is real. It’s a real, plus Major League pitch. He’s got velocity. For him, it’s fill up the strike zone and attack it. When he does that, he has the stuff to pitch, and pitch successfully at this level.”
Only by doing that will Hammer be able to secure a bullpen spot that’s been a revolving door for the Mets. In the span of less than a week, the team called up right-hander Guillermo Zuñiga, then designated him for assignment while acquiring right-hander Matt Seelinger in a trade to replace him, then designated him for assignment and called up Xzavion Curry. Curry is still on the roster, because the Mets optioned Tobias Myers instead to clear space for Hammer.
“You go through a season, you run into stretches where the bullpen is taxed,” Green said. “It comes in waves. You get stretches where you can’t get them enough innings, and then you get stretches where it’s like you can’t get them off the mound. This revolving carousel of one spot tends to happen to all teams at different points of time during the season.
“We’ve actually ended up in a weird world where they’ve all had to pitch a meaningful, impactful inning. That’s why it takes 45 to 50 guys to be a championship-caliber club. It doesn’t just take 26.”