John Franco knows better than anyone else exactly what it takes to be a great closer in Queens. After all, he towers above everyone else on the Mets’ all-time saves list with 276 to his name (Armando Benitez is second at 160).
So when Franco spoke on Wednesday about what Edwin Diaz‘s absence means for the Mets, it was certainly worth listening.
Franco, 62, is currently a guest instructor at Mets camp in Port St. Lucie, where he compared Diaz to one of the game’s all-time greats in terms of how much he means to this team and the fans.
“When you lose a closer of that caliber, the best closer in baseball, guys gotta step up,” Franco said. “It’s unfortunate what happened, but hopefully he has a speedy recovery and he’ll come back better than – you can’t be much better than what he had last year, that’s for sure. He’s almost like Mariano Rivera. When opposing teams saw him come out, they knew the game was over, and that’s what Diaz brought to the table coming out of that bullpen with the horns and got the fans going.
“Plus, when your teammates see a guy like that coming out and the job that he’s done the last couple of years, you know that 95, 96, 99 percent off the game is over. It’s a big loss, but like I said earlier, guys have to step up and fill in.”
Diaz, of course, will be sidelined for most of, if not all, of the 2023 season after tearing his patellar tendon in his right knee while celebrating with his Puerto Rico teammates after a World Baseball Classic win.
With Diaz coming off an All-Star season in which he pitched to a 1.31 ERA with 32 saves and 17.1 strikeouts per nine innings, Franco knows it will be tough to replace that kind of production, but he believes that Mets have players in place who can step into that ninth-inning role.
“The guys who were in front of him, [David] Robertsonwho’s closed before, and [Adam] Octavino, who’s done some closing, so those guys gotta step up,” Franco said. “Everybody’s just got to step up. It’s a long season and there are injuries and guys who step in for the guys who are hurt trying to do the best that they can. Most successful teams have that. Robertson has closed games, he’s been around for a while. I’m sure Buck is going to flip flop and manage the game the way the game presents itself.”
Franco also knows full well that the baseball season is a marathon, and injuries are bound to happen along the way. And he can speak from experience when he says that championship-contending teams almost always need to have everyone on the roster pull their weight, especially when a player goes down.
“2000, when we went to the World Series, guys got hurt,” Franco said. “Derek BellI believe, got hurt and Timo Perez came out of nowhere, stepped up and did a great job, and that’s what you need. It’s gonna take 26,27, maybe 30 guys to get where you want to go.”