Mets reliever Max Kranick proving everyone wrong
Mets relief pitcher Max Kranick (32) pitches against the Toronto Blue Jays during the sixth inning at Citi Field in Flushing, NY, on Sunday, April 6, 2025. The Mets defeated the Blue Jays 2-1. Credit: Brad Penner
The Mets demoted one of their best relievers to Triple-A Syracuse on Wednesday.
There were no hard conversations to be had, even though Max Kranick’s career has taken hit after hit since he made his major-league debut in 2021. No, the only bags Kranick had to pack Wednesday were the ones he was taking back to Citi Field after a road series in Minneapolis.
It makes perfect sense, of course. The move was merely bureaucratic: The Mets needed to make room on the roster, Kranick had options, and they placed Jose Siri on the injured list on Thursday, meaning Kranick didn’t have to wait the requisite 15 days after demotion to return to the major-league roster.
But if you zoom out, it’s a stark turn of events for a pitcher who potentially looked to be on his way out of baseball. Kranick came onto the scene with the Pirates in 2021 and struggled as a starter before hitting a groove in 2022 . . . for a whole two games.
“Then my elbow blew out,” he said ruefully. He returned from Tommy John surgery in 2023, but his fastball wasn’t where he wanted it, and in January 2024, the Pirates designated him for assignment.
The Mets picked him up and shipped him to the minors, where he struggled, and by May, he was DFA’d again.
It was like “reality setting in,” pitching coach Jeremy Hefner said Friday. “Guys can kind of go two different ways. You can kind of feel sorry for yourself, like, I’m not on the roster, my path to the big leagues is a lot longer now, you can feel like the victim, or you can take it as an opportunity of, OK, I’m going to prove you guys wrong.”
This year, Kranick has gone out and proved everyone wrong.
After clearing waivers last year, he returned to Syracuse and got to work. The righthander, who mostly throws a four-seamer and slider, got stronger, started throwing harder and introduced a sweeper and a cutter (he also throws a curveball). By October, he was good enough to make the major-league Wild Card Series roster in lieu of an injured Tylor Megill. And now, in April, the converted reliever is a mainstay in what is one of the best bullpens in the majors.
“It means a lot,” Kranick said. “It feels good that people have confidence in me, most importantly the front office and the coaching staff and the players, too.”
Going into Friday’s game against the Cardinals, Kranick was 1-0 with a 1.54 ERA, seven strikeouts and no walks — making him one of only eight relievers to have faced at least 30 batters and not walked one. Opposing batters were hitting .150/.150/.250 against him, he’s almost equally effective against righties and lefties, and he has not allowed six of seven inherited runners to score. The sweeper plays well to righties and the curveball can eat up lefties.
“I think he’s got an easygoing but yet intense and purposeful way about him,” Hefner said. “There’s not a lot of anxiousness in terms of being able to operate and make decisions under pressure. Some people describe it as a slow heartbeat . . . It’s not really his personality to be aggressive but I think he wants to be great, so that part of it came and bubbled up.”
Clay Holmes, who was teammates with Kranick in Pittsburgh, said he saw the potential in him early on. (Hefner credits Holmes, a former reliever with a voracious appetite for data, with helping Kranick along.)
“It’s not easy to be as patient as the game requires sometimes,” Holmes said. “You have to have the patience and the will to get through that. It’s tough . . . [The various trials] kind of made him say, hey, you know what? What is it that I choose? Who is it that I want to be? He’s had to answer those questions and put the work in.”
The result has surprised even Hefner, who looked at Kranick and even Huascar Brazoban as pitchers the Mets likely would use in lower-leverage situations. No longer: The duo can pitch multiple innings, yes, but neither has shied away from a challenge. Because of it, the Mets’ bullpen ERA is 2.09 — third in MLB.
“If someone would have come and told me that at the beginning of camp, I would have been like, eh, I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Hefner said. “And no, it’s happening. They’ve taken the ball and ran with it.”
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
