Edwin Diaz Took Home A Nice Award This Offseason

MLB recently handed out some player awards that were announced after the 2022 season.

Two excellent pitchers received their recognitions: Justin Verlander and Edwin Diaz.

The first one earned the American League Cy Young award with the Houston Astros last year.

The latter dominated MLB from the New York Mets‘ closer role, but is getting recognized for being a good guy.

“Edwin Díaz received the BBWAA New York Chapter’s ‘Good Guy’ award at last night’s dinner, while Justin Verlander picked up his third American League Cy Young,” Mets insider Anthony DiComo tweeted.

Edwin Díaz received the BBWAA New York Chapter's "Good Guy" award at last night's dinner, while Justin Verlander picked up his third American League Cy Young.

(📸 @MLB) pic.twitter.com/a1g3iTF8wu

— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) January 29, 2023

Diaz had quite an eventful season in Queens last year.

He showed that nobody in MLB can strike out hitters at a similar rate as he does.

He finished with 118 punchouts in just 62 innings of work, good for 17.13 strikeouts per nine frames.

Some starting pitchers with 150 innings didn’t even reach that mark.

That was MLB’s highest mark.

Not only did he strike people out, but he was very much unhittable.

With a 1.31 ERA and a 0.90 Fielding Independent Pitching, or FIP, just about every pitching metric agreed he was a beast.

He also saved 32 games and accumulated 3.0 Wins Above Replacement, or WAR.

He also became famous in the music industry: Timmy Trumpet played his entrance song and it became widespread among baseball (and Blasterjaxx) fans.

He grew his personal brand, had a terrific performance, and was recognized as a good guy.

Now, Diaz will try to win the World Series with the Mets this year.

Fortunately, Verlander is now in Queens to help him: the team signed him to a two-year, $86 million to anchor their rotation together with Max Scherzer.

Will they achieve the grand goal?

They have two aces in the rotation and one in the bullpen as long as Diaz is healthy and ready to go.