Two days ago the Mets completed a pair of trades to bring some lefties into the Mets pen. The second trade of the day brought Jerry Blevins over from the Nationals in return for Matt den Dekker. Matt was known for his defense and at one point int time looked like a candidate to start in center back when it was an open competition between Captain Kirk and Juan Lagares. We know how that story played out and Matt really became a player without a role on the team. Rather than adding to the current logjam of players the Mets have in certain areas, they traded for Jerry Blevins to get another lefty in the pen.
Jerry Blevins has been in the league for a while, breaking in at age 23 in 2007 with the Athletics. He landed with the Nationals last year via a trade. In his last few years:
2012: 5-1, 2.48 ERA, 63 G, 65.1 IP, 54 K, 1.071 WHIP
2013: 5-0, 3.15 ERA, 67 G, 60.0 IP, 52 K, 1.067 WHIP
2014: 2-3, 4.87 ERA, 64 G, 57.1 IP, 66 K, 1.238 WHIP
Curious turn of events for Jerry last year. His strikeout numbers took a significant increase, as did his WHIP and as did his ERA. Overall his work load for the last several seasons seems stable and hopefully since the Mets now have two lefties in the pen, they won’t have to over work either one of them.
