Herget Fills Mets Bullpen Gap as Deadline Dismantling Begins

The Mets selected Kevin Herget's contract from Triple-A Syracuse on Saturday, filling a roster vacancy created by the trade of lefty A.J. Minter to Minnesota earlier in the week. Xzavion Curry, who threw five innings in long relief Friday, was optioned down to create the active spot—a standard maneuver that also removes a pitcher from availability for several days after heavy usage. The move itself is procedural; Herget, 35, has already spent parts of four seasons in the majors, including 12 innings with New York in 2025 at a 3.00 ERA.

What matters is what Herget's callup represents: a holding pattern. The Mets are not retooling around him or signaling confidence in the rotation depth. They're cycling a veteran arm into the bullpen because they have open innings to fill while leadership decides which relievers to trade away. With 53 hours remaining before the deadline, the organization has already shipped out Minter—a setup man with controlled costs—and is actively fielding calls on Luke Weaver (career-best season, controllable through 2027), Brooks Raley (expiring free agent, movable at deadline prices), and Huascar Brazoban. Herget is filler, a reliable if unremarkable option who can swallow innings while the front office conducts a fire sale.

Herget's profile is stable enough: 4.20 career ERA across 55 2/3 big league innings, a 13.7% strikeout rate, 34.1% ground-ball rate, and fastball velocity sitting at 92.3 mph. He threw 13 2/3 innings in Triple-A this season with a 3.94 ERA after recovering from a minor-league injury list stint. Command is his calling card—6% walk rate—and he generates ground balls, which limits home run risk in any ballpark. But velocity and swing-and-miss miss are not his tools. Across his career, he's struck out 13.7% of batters faced; the league average is closer to 20%. In a bullpen already stripped of premium relievers by circumstance and soon to be further depleted by trade, Herget won't elevate the Mets' relief ERA.

For bettors, Herget's presence in the bullpen lowers confidence in Mets bullpen unders for the remainder of the season. The team was already deploying a back-end relief corps weakened by injuries and organizational neglect; Weaver's imminent departure removes their only above-average arm in high-leverage spots. Raley, a competent reliever but hardly elite, is walking out the door. Herget and mid-tier arms like Sean Reid-Foley and others will shoulder increased leverage innings. His ground-ball tendency limits fly-ball distance, but his strikeout rate is too low to generate swing-and-miss relief, meaning he's dependent on defense quality behind him—a problem when bullpen depth is razed for prospects. Any game where the Mets trail late should carry elevated bullpen risk through August and September.

The broader context is inescapable: a team that won 85 games last season (2025) has cratered so badly in 2026 that it's not even trying to win. Herget is a symptom of surrender.