Thanks to his relatively lengthy path to accruing major league service time, Huascar Brazobán still has one option remaining heading into the 2026 season. We’re starting there because it figures to come into play as the Mets have built another bullpen that’s designed to see a lot of roster churn, even though approach went pretty poorly as the team struggled mightily over the final few months of the season.
From June 13, the beginning of the end for the 2025 Mets, through the end of the season, Mets relievers
had a 4.60 ERA that was the fifth-worst mark in all of baseball. A relief corps that might’ve already been too thin on talent and major league track records wound up being overworked by a rotation that was seemingly allergic to going deep in games, and despite using 39 different players in relief, the team didn’t find a single new arm last year that’s currently projected to make the Opening Day bullpen this year.
Nevertheless, the Mets have stuck to that approach, and hey, it certainly could break in their favor this time around. Devin Williams, Luke Weaver, and Brooks Raley—to be joined soon afterwards by AJ Minter—should be a pretty solid bullpen core. If the Mets roll with a six-man rotation and a seven-man bullpen, that leaves four open spots in the Opening Day bullpen and three spots once Minter returns, assuming everyone else avoids injury in the meantime.
The Mets have made some early roster cuts, but Brazobán wasn’t one of them and figures to have a good shot at making the roster. If there’s a roster crunch to start the season or once Minter returns, though, that aforementioned option could see him spend time in Triple-A Syracuse like he did last year.
In his time with the Mets last year, Brazobán was effective if unspectacular. He had a 3.57 ERA and a 4.04 FIP in 63.0 innings of work. And since joining the Mets in a trade with the Marlins in 2024, he has a 3.96 ERA and a 4.11 FIP.
Unless several other pitchers establish themselves as better major league relievers, Brazobán looks like he’ll spend the majority of his time in Queens again this year. On average, the projections at FanGraphs have him ending up with an ERA around four with fifty-something innings pitched. If that’s how things go, it’d be a continuation of what he’s done since the Mets traded for him. There’s no bold prediction to be extracted here, but he should be able to contribute to a successful season if the rest of the team has one.
