NEW YORK — The New York Mets eyed Jefry Yan for years.
After Yan struck out 39.1 percent of the batters he faced in Double A in 2023, the Mets targeted him as a minor-league free agent. The lefty reliever instead opted for Japan, where the Mets continued scouting him. Then, ahead of the 2025 season, Yan signed with the Colorado Rockies, who later released him halfway through the year.
With Yan, known for his celebratory leaps, available at last, the Mets jumped at the opportunity.
At the recommendation of assistant director of player personnel Jason Stein, the Mets signed Yan to a two-year minor-league deal, an unusual contract for a healthy pitcher. New York put Yan on the development list. He spent the final months of last season working at the Mets’ complex in Port St. Lucie, Fla., never appearing in a minor-league game.
Then Yan, who turns 30 Monday, took off in 2026, pitching well enough in the minors to warrant a callup this month, immediately after the Mets’ trade deadline selloff.
“He unlocked a new gear this year, especially in recent months,” Mets senior director for player personnel Nate Horowitz said. “He kept his velocity up. He improved the sinker, both breaking balls. We saw something in him on the acquisition side, but he’s also gotten a lot better from that point.”
With closer Devin Williams on the injured list, the Mets are carrying a full bullpen’s worth of tryout relievers. Yan is one of them. There’s also Kodai Senga, Daniel Duarte, Nate Lavender, Jonathan Pintaro, Chayce McDermott, Jack Weisenburger and Dedniel Núñez. For years, the Mets have struggled to develop homegrown relievers. Some of baseball’s best teams tend to pull it off.
For the Mets, seeing just one or two relievers from their unheralded group emerge as a viable option next season would qualify as a win.
“A lot of this is kind of shots on goal,” Horowitz said, “and some are going to work out, and some of them aren’t.”
Within the Mets’ cast of relative unknowns, Yan attracts the most attention because of his must-see celebrations and can’t-miss strikeout numbers. But others warrant consideration over the season’s final six weeks.
Although Williams hopes to return before the end of the season, he said Friday he wasn’t sure when he would resume throwing. In the meantime, Senga has converted both of his save opportunities, relying more on his forkball and four-seam fastball.
Senga is averaging 97.3 mph with his fastball as a one-inning reliever, more than a full mph higher than a couple of months ago, when he was struggling as a starter. As a reliever, he is nibbling around the strike zone less often.
“The only difference that I see is a guy who is enjoying what he’s doing,” bullpen coach José Rosado said. “He feels like he can contribute to the team doing what he’s doing right now. It’s less thinking. That’s something that I could see hurting him in the past. With Kodai, he knows that it’s do or die at that moment.”
Senga is also improving his preparation. It’s an adjustment. Over his career as a starter, dating back to his time in Japan, he mostly pitched every sixth day. The Mets haven’t yet used him in back-to-back games, though manager Andy Green said they intend to. When it comes to knowing what they have in Senga as a reliever, the club remains in discovery mode.
“He’s doing awesome,” Rosado said. “The first couple of times, we needed to make a call earlier so that he could get ready. But now, I kind of like when he doesn’t have time. It’s less thinking. I could see his game face in that situation. So far, so good.”
The early results are strong for others, too. Duarte is throwing more strikes, particularly first-pitch strikes, than ever. In 18 1/3 innings, Duarte holds a 0.98 ERA. A right-hander, he has held left-handed batters to a .466 OPS. In 2023, the last time Duarte spent more than two innings in the majors over a full season, lefties had a .654 OPS against him.
The way Rosado sees it, the role changes are key for Duarte and others. In a lost season for the team, they’re not expecting to return to the minors after a bad performance or long outing — not nearly as much as they did earlier in the season, anyway. Instead of throwing the final two innings of a lopsided game, Duarte is working as a late-inning setup reliever.
The same is true for others such as Pintaro, who logged two scoreless innings Friday and stuck around for Saturday. Earlier in the season, a multi-inning outing for Pintaro, who has attracted interest from other teams over the past couple of years, would’ve meant a trip back to Triple A; the Mets would’ve needed to swap him for a fresh pitcher. It’s no longer a necessity. The situation helps the relievers throw with more freedom and confidence.
“It’s a different mentality,” Rosado said.
Identifying helpful relievers from the lower rings of free agency, through the farm system or on the waiver wire, is not easy. Núñez is an example of the challenges: He burst onto the scene in 2024, got hurt and has since struggled to reclaim his footing.
Still, having a relative unknown pop as a contributor helps the Mets rely less on free agency and avoid continuously remaking their bullpen. That’s why one or two such players go a long way. Perhaps it’s someone such as Lavender, who attacks with strikes. Or Austin Warren, who was a revelation earlier in the season before an injury for which he is on a rehab assignment. Or someone else entirely.
Perhaps it’s Yan, who Saturday covered 1 2/3 scoreless innings with three strikeouts and performed one extra jumping celebration when he mistakenly thought he had a called third strike.
No, Yan’s ritual did not come up much while the Mets were exploring a deal with him, Horowitz said, outside of communicating to top brass that it was part of his identity.
If Yan sticks around long enough to make his celebrations old news, plenty of others within the Mets might join him in jumping up with joy.
