2025 Bullpen Shuttle Squad Report

Shuttlers (minimum 10 IP): Brandon Waddell (31 1/3 IP, 3.45 ERA, 22 K), Justin Hagenman (23 2/3 IP, 4.56 ERA, 23 K), Chris Devenski (16 2/3 IP, 2.16 ERA, 14 K), José Castillo (15 1/3 IP, 2.35 ERA, 19 K), Blade Tidwell (15 IP, 9.00 ERA, 10 K), Rico Garcia (12 2/3 IP, 2.13 ERA, 16 K), Kevin Herget (12 IP, 3.00 ERA, 6 K), Richard Lovelady (10 IP, 6.30 ERA, 9 K)

Grade: B+
2025 Review

Brandon Waddell threw 4 1/3 scoreless innings against the Diamondbacks on April 30, striking out Josh Naylor on a slider to lead off the seventh inning on his final pitch. He left the mound, having protected a 1-0 lead, to cheers from the 31,904 at Citi Field.

“It’s awesome,” he said of the ovation. “It’s something I definitely didn’t expect. But you can feel it, you know, as a player, it means a lot to have that support, and you know something that we always really cherish.”

His next appearance was a week later in front of 2,772 at Vystar Ballpark in Jacksonville, where he threw 4 1/3 innings of one-run ball in Triple-A Syracuse’s 4-3 loss to the Jumbo Shrimp. Waddell bounced between the majors and the minors all year, making his last MLB appearance on August 31. He wasn’t the only one.

Waddell and the seven others listed above combined to pitch 136 2/3 innings to a 4.01 ERA. As a group, they held their own. (Yes, Richard Lovelady and Blade Tidwell should be thankful this was graded as a group project.) The Mets’ bullpen ERA was 3.93, good for 15th in baseball. The Padres had the best bullpen ERA at 3.06, while the Nationals had the worst at 5.59.

With injuries to Kodai Senga, Frankie Montas, Griffin Canning and Sean Manaea at varying points in the season, plus ineffectiveness from the starting core in the back half of the year, the shuttle squad became a saving grace for the Mets. Mets starters struggled to find the mid-to-late innings in games, which meant the bullpen had to eat those innings. And because arms were overworked, it became a conveyor belt of familiar faces throughout the season.

When Dom Hamel took the mound against the Padres on September 17, he was the 46th pitcher the Mets used in 2025, breaking an MLB record set the previous year by the Marlins. It took a slew of injuries, a few trades, some ineffectiveness and three position players performing mop-up duty to set the mark. And, of course, the shuttle squad.

2026 Preview

The Mets, like everyone else, will surely keep the shuttle squad trend alive. This is baseball in the 2020s, and if the 2025 Mets proved anything, it’s that you can never have enough arms. The Braves also used 46 pitchers this season. Six teams, including the Dodgers, used 40 or more. The league average was 29.

From the Mets’ first season in 1962 through the year 2000, New York used at least 20 pitchers 10 times. From 2001 to now, they have done that every season. The Mets used 30 pitchers for the first time in 2018 and have continued to do so in every year since, except the Covid-shortened 2020 season.

As for the octet above, some may return in the same role while others could be elsewhere. Tidwell is already gone, traded to San Francisco in the Tyler Rogers deal. Garcia and Castillo were waived during the season and picked up by other teams. Devenski, Herget and Lovelady are free agents. Waddell and Hagenman are on the 40-man roster.