How David Robertson stepped up to be most valuable Mets pitcher
PHOENIX — David Robertson fell short of selection to the National League All-Star team when rosters were announced last weekend, but the right-handed reliever was easily the Mets’ next-best-candidate to Pete Alonso, their slugging first baseman.
Alonso will represent the Mets in Seattle next week for the All-Star Game, while Robertson plans to head home to Rhode Island to spend time with family.
The veteran reliever has been the Mets’ most valuable pitcher this season, avoiding the kind of slumps that have sabotaged their high-end starters and most of their bullpen members alike.
“He’s taken on a lot this year,” fellow reliever Adam Ottavino said Wednesday before the Mets came back to beat the Diamondbacks 2-1 at Chase Field, with Robertson closing it out for his 13th save. “He’s facing the middle of the order almost all of the time, pitching multiple innings, coming in with guys on base. He’s doing more than the one-inning closing thing. He’s taken on a bigger role than that and been a big difference-maker for us for sure.”
The closing duties were thrust upon Robertson during spring training after Edwin Diaz tore the patellar tendon in his right knee in a celebration at the World Baseball Classic and had surgery that is expected to keep him sidelined through the season.
Robertson, 38, entered the day 2-2 with a 1.93 ERA and 12 saves in 34 appearances.
He was one of six pitchers in the majors with at least 10 saves and five holds.
Among relievers with at least 25 appearances, Robertson’s ERA was the ninth-lowest as the day began.
It has been an improvement on even the strong season Robertson had in 2022, when he posted a 2.40 ERA in 58 appearances for the Cubs and Phillies.
That was a discovery season of sorts for Robertson, who said he was still trying to figure out what he was capable of doing with his elbow after Tommy John surgery cost him most of 2019 and all of 2020.
A severe bout of COVID-19 during spring training last year caused him to lose much of his muscle mass around the time his youngest child was born.
“It was really just a survival from that point on for the rest of the season,” Robertson said. “This year I have been a little bit lucky, I have been in a little bit better spot — close to home — and not having an infant and just getting more sleep and just enjoying it a lot more.”
Robertson’s success largely has been predicated on a fastball that ranks in MLB’s 100th percentile for spin rate. Robertson’s swing-and-miss percentage is also among baseball’s best.
“He is just a perfect example of a guy who has gotten his game figured out and then been able to stay in great shape so he can do it for a long time,” Ottavino said.
All of it together makes Robertson maybe the Mets’ most valuable commodity among players in the final year of their contracts heading to the Aug. 1 trade deadline.
If the Mets become sellers, there figures to be a huge market for Robertson.
“I am hoping not to be traded,” Robertson said. “I am hoping we can turn this season around, first and foremost. I chose to come here because I felt like this was a place that would be competing for the division and so far it hasn’t worked out, but we have also had some big injuries.
“We lost those guys right out of the gate and we’re coping with those injuries and we’re figuring out right now what our identity is and how to win some ballgames again. But if they do trade me, I understand that is part of the business and it just happens. If I get traded, I am going to a team that really wants to have me there, so I just have to accept it and go.”
