Daniel Duarte was signed rather unceremoniously back in December of 2025, with his signing being discovered on his MLB.com profile page by MLB Trade Rumors. Duarte, however, is one of the more intriguing of the cornucopia of relief options that were brought in by David Stearns this past offseason, due to his past MLB experience and winter ball dominance this year.
The 29 year old righty is no stranger to playing on the biggest stages, despite quietly signing a minor league deal with little fanfare. He’s appeared in 36 Major League games in his career, debuting with the Cincinnati Reds in 2022, after bouncing around the Rangers, Royals and Reds systems prior to his debut, with a brief stint in the Mexican League in between his Reds tenures. He was traded from the Reds to the Twins prior to the 2024 offseason, played in two games for them, underwent season-ending elbow surgery, and missed all of the 2024 and 2025 campaigns. He comes to the Mets with a 3.99 career ERA.
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He also has played on the international stage, representing Mexico in the 2020 Olympics and will represent his country in the 2026 World Baseball Classic, which will be a fun side story for Mets fans to keep track of while watching the tournament.
Duarte got put on a few people’s radars after signing his minor league deal due to his performance in the Mexican Winter League. He was untouchable for Caneros de Los Mochis, playing in 25 games, throwing 24 innings, with a 0.00 ERA (not a typo, he did not surrender a single earned run in the entire season — he did surrender an unearned run, don’t sue him). He surrendered only 10 hits and walked just four batters. It was utter dominance.
Now, of course, dominating the Mexican Winter League does not necessarily mean you will be getting big outs against Major League hitters, but the performance definitely put him on the map some. He brings to the Mets a slider heavy arsenal, throwing it 36% of the time. He throws a 95-ish MPH four-seamer, a cutter, and a changeup in descending order of usage. He does not strike anyone out, nor does he walk many hitters; he relies on getting weak contact and forcing ground balls. In his lone long stint in the bigs (2023) he had a 50% ground ball rate, struck out 16.9% of batters, walked 14.7%, had just a 32.6% hard-hit rate, and a 4.3% barrel rate (all per his Baseball Savant page).
In all likelihood, Duarte will not make the Mets Opening Day roster barring some injuries ahead of him, instead pitching important innings for Triple-A Syracuse. However, he comes with an interesting profile and is fresh off dominating in Mexico over the winter, so a strong WBC and Spring performance after that could put him in pole position to be an early season call up when the bullpen roster churn eventually begins to pick up.
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