The Mets signed right-hander Daniel Duarte to a minor league deal, as first noted on Duarte’s MLB.com profile page earlier this week.
Duarte spent the 2025 season on a minors contract with the Twins but didn’t pitch while recovering from a May 2024 UCL revision surgery.
A veteran of three MLB seasons, the bulk of Duarte’s 38 1/3 career innings came as a member of the Reds bullpen in 2023, when he tossed 31 2/3 frames across 31 games.
Duarte has a respectable 3.99 ERA across his limited time in the Show, though with only a 17% strikeout rate and a troublingly comparable 14.5% walk rate.
An extreme groundball pitcher early in his minor league career, Duarte still has a 47.3% grounder rate in the majors, but batters have capitalized when they’ve been able to get the ball in the air — Duarte has given up seven homers across his 38 1/3 career innings.
It remains to be seen how Duarte will look after such a long absence, though his return to the mound in Mexican winter league play this offseason has resulted in 19 2/3 scoreless innings. A 5.71 BB% and 21.43% strikeout rate are further steps in the right direction.
New York was impressed enough to extend a contract to the 29-year-old, and Duarte will get a chance to show the team his progress first-hand during Spring Training.
There’s no risk for the Mets in bringing Duarte and several other pitchers to camp on minors deals, and there figures to be plenty of opportunity given how the Mets so often cycle relievers up and down between Triple-A and the active roster.
Duarte has a minor league option year remaining, so this gives up some advantage over out-of-options players in the competition for roster spots.
