The book is closed on mets reliever Ryan Helsley

By Nicholas Stix

The mets picked up high-priced reliever Ryan Helsley ($8.2 million per season) from the cardinals at the trading deadline, end of july. Note that because Helsley's on a one-year contract, he's just a rental.

With the cards, Helsley had been a top closer, notching 49 saves last season (2.04 era), getting the "reliever of the month" award (which I'd never heard of) three times last year, and 21 this year (on a pace to earn 31 saves). The mets gave up three minor-league prospects to get him: Jesus Baez, Nate Dohm, and Frank Elissalt.

Helsley was expected to be the set-up man, pitching the eighth inning in games we were leading, leading to our legendary closer, Edwin "Sugar" Diaz in the ninth.

Since coming to Flushing, Ryan Helsley has been the worst reliever in mets history, at least in my memory. He has pitched in 14 games, and has been a disaster in all but two of them. His era is 11.45 (with the cardinals, it was 3.00). At least three times, mets manager Carlos Mendoza has had to bring out the hook, before Helsley even completed a single inning.

Helsley says he was "tipping" his pitches, but as mets announcer Ron Darling, a longtime star starting pitcher for the mets recalled, as a young pitcher, he once had a dominant performance, while "tipping" his curve ball by sticking out a finger each time he threw it.

The problem with Ryan Helsley is something I hadn't seen in this town in many years, not since the 1980s,' when Eddie Lee Whitson came over to the yankees from the padres. Helsley, like Whitson, simply cannot pitch in new york. mets skipper Carlos Mendoza says of Helsley, "We need to get him right." No, Carlos, you need to get him off the mound, where he can no longer do damage to the team's playoff hopes. Otherwise, he'll kill your season.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/helslry01.shtml