Free Agent Profile: Tanner Scott, RP
Position: RP B/T: R/L
Age: 30 (7/22/1994)
2024 Traditional Stats: 9-6, 1.75 ERA, 1.12 WHIP, 72 G, 72 IP, 84 SO, 36 BB, 22 SV
2024 Advanced Stats: 252 ERA+, 28.6 SO%, 12.2 BB%, 2.92 xERA, 2.92 FIP, 3.38 xFIP, 1.6 fWAR, 4.0 bWAR
Steven Woj, Metsmerized
Rundown
Scott is a 30-year-old, eight-year veteran who made the All-Star team for the first time this year as the lone Miami Marlins representative. He converted 18 of 20 save chances for Miami before the San Diego Padres traded for him at the deadline to bolster their bullpen for a playoff run.
He was excellent for the Padres, too, going 3-1 with a 2.73 ERA and four saves in the heat of a playoff race. In the postseason, he fanned seven in 4 1/3 scoreless innings combined against the Braves and Dodgers. He struck out Shohei Ohtani four times in the NLDS.
As Ohtani can attest, he was especially tough on lefties, holding them to a .132/.224/.191 slash line with no home runs in 68 at-bats. He throws a four-seam fastball that averaged 97 mph this year, per FanGraphs, and a slider. Hitters batted .130 against his fastball. Fun fact: He threw 1,163 pitches this year. One was a changeup.
Scott spent the first five seasons of his career with the Orioles, pitching to a 4.73 ERA in 156 innings. He had another mediocre season in 2022 in Miami, but something apparently clicked in 2023 when he struck out a career-high 104 in 78 innings and pitched to a 2.31 ERA. Excluding the shortened 2020 Covid season, his ERA was north of 4.00 every year prior.
Contract
Scott was on a one-year, $5.7 million contract this season. He has made $11.6 million in career earnings, per Spotrac, and will be looking to sign a multi-year deal. (The Athletic predicts four years, $60 million.) Players traded midseason are ineligible to receive qualifying offers (a process that ends with a signing team incurring draft pick penalties) so that is not an issue to consider with Scott.
Recommendation
Relief pitchers can be notoriously volatile from year to year (and even outing to outing) and I am generally a fan of finding bullpen arms on the cheap. Scott, however, is the best lefty reliever on the free agent market and I think the Mets should make an exception in this case even with the expensive price tag. Carlos Mendoza could use Scott to close and deploy Edwin Díaz earlier in games in certain circumstances. The righty-lefty, Díaz-Scott duo would give the manager invaluable match-up flexibility.
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