Thursday morning finally allowed the New York Mets to show off their holiday gift.
Newly-signed reliever Dellin Betances was introduced to the New York media at Citi Field after inking a one-year deal on Christmas Eve.
Betances comes to Queens after eight seasons with the Yankees in the Bronx, where he developed into one of the more dominant relievers in the game.
From 2014-2018, Betances was a four-time All-Star, posting a 2.22 ERA with 607 strikeouts in 373.1 innings of work.
But in a contract year, Betances was limited to just two-thirds of an inning thanks to injuries, which hurt his value on the free-agent market and raised questions about his effectiveness moving forward.
Regardless, the Mets took a chance and have high hopes for the 31-year-old as they look to fix a bullpen that was a liability in 2019.
“This signing was intended to blow the cover off of our ceiling,” Mets general manager Brodie Van Wagenen said. “We believe that a healthy and dominant Dellin — combined with Edwin Diaz and Seth Lugo and Justin Wilson, Jeurys Familia, Brad Brach, Robert Gsellman, — this group has the potential to be one of the most dominant bullpens in baseball.”
Here are some of the highlights of what Betances had to say after putting on his No. 68 Mets uniform for the first time:
On signing with the Mets
“I already feel at home here. I look forward to expanding my career with the Mets.
This 2020 team is something that a lot of these fans need to be excited about. Just from watching them from across the way, they had one of the better records in the second half… There’s a lot of excitement and buzz and I can’t wait to meet the guys and start this new jersey. The goal is to win and I’m going to do the best I can to win.
New York is in my blood.”
On what made the Mets a favorite
“Speaking to [Robinson] Cano, he spoke very highly on Brodie. Ever since he came, he’s tried to bring in the right group of guys… to make this team work. You need a full team to be as well-prepared as you can.”
“We had the chance to play in another city, something we’ve never done. I feel like we’ve been spoiled… I think the Mets were always engaged and Carlos [Beltran] was always steering me to come to this team. He feels like this team is ready to take the next step. As talks kept going… I was really excited to stay home. I think it worked out perfect.”
On future expectations and his role
“If you look, our rotation, we probably have one of the better rotations in the big leagues. Our job in the bullpen is to hold those leads… the biggest thing as a bullpen is to keep that score the same way as we can. If we can do that, I think we’ll win a lot of ballgames in 2020.”
“For me, all I care about is winning. Whatever role the staff envisions me in, all I want to do is do my job. I know we have Edwin Diaz, who is a tremendous closer… whatever they see me in, all I want to do is help the team win. Whether that’s come in early, come in late.”
On his health
“I’ve been under their surveillance… They’ve helped me out tremendously. I’ll be ready to go at spring training and that’s the important part.”
On playing for Carlos Beltran
“I know that Beltran is someone I got the chance to play with and he’s probably one of the players I would say is just hungry for baseball. He’s just hungry for information and any way he can help your team, any way he can help you, he would try to do the best job he could. Him being the manager here definitely helped out.
He’s a future Hall of Famer. There are not many guys you can say that about and he’s going to lead the charge. I’m excited to play for him.”
