Having joined the Mets via trade last summer, Brazobán begins this season on the major league roster.

Until the Mets announced yesterday afternoon that Paul Blackburn would begin the season on the injured list, it seemed like Huascar Brazobán was destined for Triple-A Syracuse to start the 2025 season. Instead, he’s made the major league roster, and the 35-year-old will attempt to make a better impression to start this year than he did after joining the Mets via trade during the 2024 season.

Having made his major league debut in his age-32 season in 2022, Brazobán spent the entirety of his major league career with the Marlins up until the trade in late July of last year. And he pitched pretty well for Miami, as he had a 3.56 ERA and a 3.62 FIP with 139 strikeouts and 63 walks over the course of 97 outings that totaled 121.1 innings of work.

In the portion of the 2024 season that he spent in Miami, Brazobán looked particularly good. He struck out 34, issued 11 walks, and gave up just one home run in 30.2 innings in that portion of the season, and he had a 2.93 ERA with a 2.64 FIP. The Mets traded for him just ahead of the trade deadline, giving up minor league infielder Wilfredo Lara in the deal. The move drew a rave review from our own Lukas Vlahos at the time.

Unfortunately, Brazobán didn’t make the best impression over the course of the rest of the season. While his first outing in a Mets uniform was a scoreless inning, he gave up three runs in just two-thirds of an inning, earning a blown save and a loss in the process, in his second appearance. And in his 19 appearances out of the Mets’ bullpen, he gave up two or more runs a total four times and gave up one run in three others.

Add it up, and Brazobán finished his brief Mets stint in 2024 with a 5.14 ERA and a 4.31 FIP. Among Mets relievers, he was one of the worst by win probability added, as his -0.47 ranked 23rd among the 27 pitchers who threw at least one inning out of the bullpen. Brazobán made the team’s roster for its Wild Card series against the Brewers but didn’t pitch, and he didn’t make the team’s NLDS or NLCS rosters after that.

Despite all of that, though, there is plenty to like about Brazobán moving forward. Given his unique path that saw him make his major league debut after turning 30, he has two options remaining and is under team control through the 2028 season. Next year will be the first time he’s eligible for arbitration.

While his career walk rate is a bit high at 12.5 percent, Brazobán has been good at limiting home runs in his time in the big leagues. With 0.63 home runs allowed per nine innings, his home run rate has been the 27th-best mark in baseball among the 185 relievers who have thrown enough innings to be qualified since the beginning of the 2022 season.

If the Mets’ current front office, the team’s pitching lab, and its coaching staff can help Brazobán find the right stuff and mix to maximize his strikeouts, he could be a very good reliever for the team. Spring training results can be incredibly deceiving at times, but it was at least encouraging that his strikeout rate was up in Grapefruit League play and that he finished with a 1.69 ERA and a 3.08 FIP in 10.2 innings of work in the exhibition league.

By the time the Mets decide that Blackburn is healthy or that another reliever has earned a major league roster spot, Brazobán and his peers will have had some time to establish whether or not they should be the arm demoted to Syracuse to make space on the roster. Here’s hoping that Brazobán looks like his pre-trade self—or better—and isn’t the first pitcher sent down, even if his remaining options will make that a tougher task.