Once low-profile, this Mets pitcher could go from sharing locker to All-Star Game
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This story was excerpted from Anthony DiComo’s Mets Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
LOS ANGELES -- Reed Garrett was not drafted out of high school. He instead attended the Virginia Military Institute, a school without much history of producing Major League Baseball players.
Nonetheless, Garrett grinded well enough for the Rangers to select him in the 16th round of the 2014 Draft. During his first Minor League Spring Training, he shared a locker with a similarly unheralded teammate.
“I was like, ‘Damn, dude, I might not even make it out of camp,’” Garrett recalled.
Things did not grow easier from there. After five years without a sniff of the big leagues, Garrett became a Rule 5 Draft pick of the Tigers, who subsequently returned him to the Rangers, who banished him back to the Minors before eventually releasing him. Garrett went from there to Japan to spend two years with the Seibu Lions in the middle of a pandemic, which he called “a big growing part of my life.” During that time, Garrett rarely saw his family. He had little reason to think his career might change in any meaningful way.
Even after returning to the United States in 2022, Garrett bounced from the Nationals to the Orioles and finally to the Mets, where Jeremy Hefner and the Mets’ pitching team saw potential in him. Early last season, he experienced his first breakout.
Now, at age 32, Garrett has blossomed. Even after taking a difficult loss Thursday in Los Angeles, the right-hander carries a 0.99 ERA. He is a bona fide National League All-Star candidate who has come to appreciate his winding journey.
“Life is about that, right?” Garrett said. “Life is about persevering through adversity and getting through tough times. I don’t think my entire career has been an easy path.”
Garrett’s ability to remake himself in his 30s has been one of the quintessential stories of a Mets pitching program that’s flourished under Hefner the past two seasons.
After years of switching leagues every summer and hunting for jobs each winter, Garrett spent this offseason enjoying real job security for the first time. In April, he moved back into the same Long Island neighborhood where he spent the 2024 season. His wife returned to the friends she had made. His children reunited with those of his teammates.
“They feel comfortable,” Garrett said. “I feel comfortable. It’s been great.”
As far back as Spring Training, Garrett pondered the idea of making the All-Star team -- less as a personal goal than a marker of his success. He believed in the repertoire changes he had made over the previous year, relying more on his splitter and sweeper to challenge hitters in the strike zone. Recovering from a midseason slump and pitching in October, Garrett said, served to fuel his trust in himself.
“I believed that I could do it and just had that self-confidence of like, ‘Hey, I know I’m capable of being that person,’” Garrett said.
This year, Garrett has “taken it to another level,” as manager Carlos Mendoza put it, projecting even more self-assurance on the mound. It has allowed Garrett to become one of baseball’s best at pitching out of jams, which is a helpful skill for someone who walks more than a batter every other inning.
For Garrett, success has bred security, which has in turn bred additional success. If it results in an All-Star appearance -- a rare honor for a non-closing reliever -- Garrett would welcome it as recognition of everything he has endured in his career.
“Obviously, we all want to come up and be like, ‘Hey, I’m Rookie of the Year,’ and, ‘Hey, I’ve been in the big leagues. I’ve never used an option,’ -- stuff like that,” Garrett said. “But it’s cool to have to work for it.”