New York Mets Top 37 Prospects

Álvarez has comfortably lived up to the hype since signing out of Venezuela in 2018 for nearly $3 million. Considered too advanced for the team’s Dominican complex, he made his stateside pro debut in 2019 and followed that up by posting a .941 OPS across two A-ball levels in 2021 while he was still a teenager. In 2022, he dominated the upper levels (.260/.374/.511) and made his big league debut at age 20 with a five-game cup of coffee. Veteran stalwarts Omar Narváez and Tomás Nido began the 2023 season ahead of him on the big league depth chart, but both catchers experienced bumps and bruises early on, which resulted in the college-aged Álvarez being recalled to the majors in early April. He was foisted into the primary catching role not long before the Mets list was published.

If you have the opportunity to head to the ballpark early and watch Álvarez take batting practice, you should. He has had the most impressive BP session at each of the last two Futures Games, launching satellite-threatening baseballs to the very outer reaches of big league stadiums. And Álvarez wants to show you his power. He does not take casual BP hacks, he maxes out and swings with all-out effort. This extends to his in-game approach, a feature that gives some scouts pause and inspires concern that big league pitchers will pull the rug out from under him. There is some analytical fire to back up the smoke the scouts are smelling. Álvarez only ran a 75% Z-contact and 66% overall contact rate in the minors last year and has produced similarly low rates in the majors. That’s near the bottom of the big league catchers’ continuum and is almost identical to Joey Bart and Jorge Alfaro, both of whom have struggled to find big league footing on offense. Still, Álvarez has been 20 to 21 years old while facing Double-A pitching and above, so it’s reasonable to project growth in this area. Plus, Álvarez isn’t nearly as chase-prone as Alfaro and has much more power than Bart, so he should outperform both. His swing is designed for power. It has a bit of a loop and a steep plane to it, enabling him to crush mistakes to left and center field. He doesn’t track pitches especially well (his head often flies all over the place) and he has mediocre barrel variability, so he’s likely to swing and miss at an above-average clip in the big leagues, but he’s going to get to an absurd amount of power for a catcher and produce at an All-Star offensive level for the position.

Defensively, Álvarez is still a bit of a mixed bag, but he’s improved very quickly in a couple of key areas. The headline tool here is Álvarez’s huge arm. He will sometimes pop below 1.80 seconds now that he’s gotten better at leaving his crouch before the pitch has reached him. He’s capable of making some ridiculous throws because of his athleticism and raw arm strength, but Álvarez will also botch the occasional exchange because his hands aren’t great. He still tends to let low breaking balls travel too deep, making some frameable pitches look like they’re comfortably below the zone. But he’s gotten much better at blocking balls from the one-knee position in 2023, less often trying to use his 40-grade hands to pick everything in the dirt and more often moving laterally while maintaining a wide base to seal with his whole lower body. Álvarez receives on one knee with the bases empty and mixes his technique with runners on base. His quickness for an athlete his size is remarkable, and his style of receiving has facilitated that quickness and mobility in beneficial ways in 2023. Things are going pretty well for a 21-year-old tasked with catching the monster stuff of a contending team’s pitching staff. It will probably be a while before Álvarez is banging on all cylinders, but he’s holding his own as a defender and his power should keep his offensive output close to average while he adjusts to big league pitching and climbs toward premium production for the position a year or two from now.

Baty made some subtle swing changes last year that may have better actualized his plus-plus raw power. Most apparently, his batting stance is more upright now than it was in prior seasons. Baty has consistently been a high groundball rate hitter, at least 51% at every full-season level until his 42% 2022 mark with Double-A Binghamton, where he spent the bulk of the year. The identifiable visual tweak to the swing, the shift in batted ball profile, and Baty’s dramatic uptick in home runs in 2022 are all indications that he’s dialed in the details that have kept him vacillating between several FV tiers for the last couple of years. Lever length still limits Baty’s ability to make consistent, quality contact in certain parts of the zone, but he still shows you impressive barrel control as he tries to get the bat where it needs to be. He’s a lovely, loose rotator for a hitter his size and is willing to use the opposite field when pitches are away from him. He’s still going to swing and miss at a lot of fastballs up and away from him; he is often late to this portion of the zone. He has the power to do big damage the other way when he’s catching pitches out there, but he runs hot and cold in this respect.

Baty was an older draft prospect of considerable size and there was worry he’d have to move to first base in pro ball. Though he sometimes needs an extra beat or two to get rid of the baseball, he’s not only kept things in check physically but actually improved to the point of being an above-average defender. A relatively complete player, Baty has been the Mets’ everyday third baseman for the better part of the last month and projects as an above-average regular.

Barely a “prospect” to begin with, this is more of a check-in on my offseason evaluation of Senga than it is a real update to his scouting report. The Top 100 and archived international prospect lists have more detail on his NPB track record than this blurb does, so readers should check those out if they’re interested in that, but the meat of his report was as follows: Senga’s fastball sits 96 mph and will touch as high as 102, though he typically tops out at 99 in any given start. Even though premium velocity is relatively rare in Japan, Senga’s fastball doesn’t play like a premium pitch due to its shape and angle. In fact, his dastardly mid-80s splitter, which falls off the table and finishes below the strike zone, is easily his best offering, garnering twice as many swings and misses as his fastball in 2022, and about as many whiffs as the rest of his many pitches combined. Those pitches (in order of usage) are a cutter, slider, and the occasional curveball, all bending in anywhere between 94 and 75 mph, with the slider’s shape and velo sometimes bleeding into the other two. While his breaking ball command is inconsistent, Senga’s velocity, splitter, repertoire depth, and demonstrated durability make him a fit as no. 3 or 4 starter on a contender.

In his early big league starts, Senga has posted an ERA and FIP around 4.00. His splitter is the only one of his offerings generating a better-than-average swinging strike rate, and Senga has leaned heavily on his cutter as a strike-garnering pitch while tending to use his fastball above the zone as a chase pitch. His fastball’s lack of in-zone playability is a big reason why he’s had an elevated walk rate. On five days rest for each of his starts, Senga’s velocity had been trending down approaching list publication. His rest-of-season ZiPS and Steamer projections have him on pace for a 2-WAR season (exactly a 50), while THE BAT is a little more bearish and thinks Senga is a fifth starter. Barring the velo continuing to slip as a result of him having one fewer day of rest between starts than is typical in Japan, Senga is tracking in line with his offseason assessment.

Aided by Brooklyn’s slick road gray threads and adorned with pink and sky blue pads and accessories, the sleek 6-foot-3 Ramírez is perhaps the coolest looking prospect in the minors. He has that five-tool look because of his electric bat speed and a slender, athletic frame that might mature in the Goldilocks Zone, where Ramírez grows into even more power while remaining in center field. His offensive performance has tended to hover at or above league average even though he has been extremely young for the levels to which he’s been assigned, and after his pro season, his strikeout rates have been manageable despite a very aggressive approach at the plate.

Ramírez has plus-plus bat speed and will show you big pull-side power already. His wispy frame has room for another 30 pounds at least, and with that weight and strength could come huge raw thunder. Ramírez has to cut some mechanical corners to swing as hard as he does right now, which leads to swing-and-miss risk in addition to what’s already present because of his propensity to chase. His levers and swing are both long, and he can get eaten up by fastballs running down and in toward his knees. His hit tool projection is still in the “maybe” bucket and there’s real bust risk here because of the chase and lever length combo.

But Ramírez has improved in center field. He glides from gap to gap and can make some ridiculous adjustments to balls pushed around by the wind. If there’s an aspect of his game to feel better about after a middling 2023 start, it’s Ramírez’s center field defense, which will give his likely below-average hit tool room to breath over time. A more relaxed Jose Siri is a pretty good comp here from a frame and skill set standpoint, though ideally Ramírez won’t need a prolonged upper-level adjustment period the way Siri did.

Mauricio is both “What They Look Like” and “What They Look Like When They Bust.” He is a huge-framed, switch-hitting shortstop with power from both sides of the plate and a rocket arm, but his swing decisions are often so reckless that even though he’s coming off a 20/20 season at Double-A, he’s still an extremely volatile prospect. Mauricio has developed as well as could have been rationally hoped for when he signed. He’s filled out and gotten stronger while remaining just agile enough to play shortstop. He’s hit 20 homers in each of the last two years as he’s reached the upper levels of the minors and won the Dominican Winter League MVP during the offseason. And he’s done all this despite missing his age-19 season due to the pandemic.

Still, Mauricio had a chase rate around 40% in 2022 (that has continued early on in 2023), and he has a career .308 OBP in the minors. His secondary pitch recognition is not good, and he both needs to stay at shortstop and continue getting to all of his considerable power for an everyday profile to hold water. There are some players who are as aggressive as Mauricio (or more so) who find a way to be impact big leaguers anyway, and almost all of them tend to make enough in-zone contact to buoy their overall offensive output. Ronny Mo is on the very edge of the threshold of viability in this respect.

He does show an ability to move the barrel around and sizzle the baseball. It isn’t pretty, but some of the proof is in the data. Mauricio’s measurable power is already plus (a 45% hard-hit rate in 2022, with a 50% rate early in 2023 and a 115 mph max exit velo), and at a strapping 6-foot-4 or so, he might still grow into more. He ran an 83% Z-contact rate in 2022, which again, is right on the precipice of viability, as chase-prone, low-OBP hitters like Ozzie Albies and Jonathan Schoop have shown.

Some aspects of Mauricio’s defense need to be cleaned up. His strides are so big that it’s tough for him to change directions quickly, and he’s as likely to make an incredible play as he is to botch a routine one. Mauricio had only ever played shortstop in pro ball until he saw time at third base in LIDOM, where he understandably looked uncomfortable at times. Toward the end of April 2023, the Mets began to deploy him almost exclusively at second base. His arm strength (a 70 on the scale two winters ago) wasn’t as consistent in recent looks but is still strong. When Mauricio’s career is over, his overall line will probably look a lot like Freddy Galvis‘, with a low OBP supported by playable power, though Mauricio is likely to have some huge peak seasons with 25-30 homers.

Vientos has rebounded in a profound way as a third base defender. After it looked like he had filled out to a point that was impacting his agility and throwing in a way that limited him to first base, Vientos now looks like an above-average defender at third. His range and the quickness of his actions are both much better now than a year ago, though his arm accuracy is still a little bit mixed. He does some things better than Brett Baty and you can make a coherent argument that Vientos is currently the better defender of the two, though the Mets starting Baty at third and Vientos at DH when they’re both in the lineup indicates they think otherwise. That’s also true of Vientos relative to Pete Alonso at first base. Vientos began to see some time at first base (and in left field, though that’s since been scrapped) in 2021; more recently, his split between third and first has been pretty even. His lack of experience at the position sometimes rears its head via Vientos’ on-field decision making, but he’s a much better hands and feet athlete over there than Alonso is. His presence on the big league roster means Buck Showalter can play left/right matchups with Vientos and either Baty or Daniel Vogelbach, and give Alonso the occasional day off or start at DH to lighten the load on his legs.

Vientos could hit his way into an everyday role over time. He certainly has the power to profile at either corner infield spot, but his bat-to-ball skills have long been suspect. Vientos’ early 2023 strikeout rate is closer to average, but that could simply be due to natural adjustments he’s made in his second year at Syracuse. His swing has changed in a few subtle ways, though. His stance is more upright, his leg kick is bigger, and his bat is a little less wrapped toward the pitcher when his hands load. While these changes don’t seem sufficient to explain him cutting his strikeout rate by about a third, they do seem to have improved things in this area and have also altered Vientos’ ball-in-play spray. He’s much better able to pull fastballs on the inner third now than he was in 2022, when he was inside-outing a lot of center cut fastballs to right field. There is still a lot of in-zone swing and miss here, but Vientos’ ability to time and damage fastballs that he previously struggled with looks better and his conditioning (and by extension his defense) has definitely improved. The Mets’ depth and roster situation will likely limit his role in the short-term, but Vientos’ recent improvements have him back in the 50 FV tier projecting as an everyday third baseman in a vacuum.

Parada was the rare high-profile California high schooler who left the state for college, traveling all the way to Atlanta for two years at Georgia Tech. Just shy of age 21 in 2022, he was a draft-eligible sophomore and somehow improved on an incredible freshman season (.318/.379/.550) by nearly tripling his home run total, walking as often as he struck out, and slashing .361/.453/.709. He was ranked sixth on the 2022 draft list and fell to 11th overall over concerns about his ability to catch at the big league level. There is confidence in his bat, however. Parada has impeccable hitter’s timing and, batting stance aside, his swing is classic, rhythmic and balanced. He has enough raw power to do damage to all fields and his short levers and feel to hit weaponizes it, as he often hits the ball where it’s pitched, driving stuff on the outer edge to right field, pulling pitches on the inner third, and spraying everything in between.

Parada is not a lock to catch. He’s a fringe receiver and ball-blocker with an accurate, 45-grade arm. He is similar to Henry Davis and Kyle Schwarber in that he may have to move out from behind the plate because while no individual skill is terrible, each facet of his defense there is below average. It’s worth developing him as a backstop for at least a while since that position is at the very top of the defensive spectrum, and Parada’s other seemingly viable positions are at or near the bottom. He runs well enough to play an outfield corner and we’re projecting him there, à la Schwarber’s trajectory. Make no mistake, Parada’s bat was one of the surer things in the 2022 draft, and he’s likely to hit in the middle of a big league order regardless of position. That would make him a star catcher, but closer to an average regular if he ends up a LF/DH.

Williams has the catalytic qualities of a dangerous leadoff hitter. He’s a plus athlete, a 70 runner, and a short-levered gap-to-gap hitter who added significant strength between his junior and senior years of high school, which is largely how he elevated his stock into the first round of the 2022 draft.

Williams is athletically capable of playing all three up-the-middle positions; he’s playing shortstop most of the time and getting a start in center field once a week in St. Lucie so far this year. His hands and arm strength are both on the fringe of what’s viable at short, and Williams simply mishandles the baseball too much to be a good shortstop right now. He’s a “maybe” long-term defender there who certainly has the range and athleticism to play the position if he can polish things up. If his change in physique is any indication, Williams is going to work to improve in the areas he’s lacking, but young prospects whose defensive scouting reports read like Williams’ at the same age (the Roman Quinns and Billy Hamiltons of the world) tend to end up in center field.

This is one of those prospects who is short but not small, as Williams is very physical in the arms and lower body and has impressive pop for a hitter his size. Even before he beefed up, he was banging balls to both gaps. His compact frame helps him get on top of letter-high fastballs, but he’ll also dip with his lower half to barrel pitches down. He had a very impressive 5-to-1 balls-in-play to swinging strike ratio on the showcase circuit, better than Termarr Johnson and Jackson Holliday, albeit in a smaller sample. So far in pro ball his swing looks quick and short but somewhat grooved. Jett can adjust to breaking balls by using that bend in his lower half, but he lacks barrel accuracy with his (importantly, very explosive) hands. He’s very difficult to beat in the zone because of how compact his whole operation is, but he’s fouling off lots of hittable pitches right now and his early 2023 offensive output is beneath what I would have expected entering the year. The long-term ceiling for Williams’ hit tool is still big and there’s been no change to his projection in this area despite the slightly slow start with St. Lucie. He projects as an impact up-the-middle player even though the specifics of the defense are still cloudy.

Vasil looked like a late first/comp round prospect in high school, then had an untimely injury as a senior and only pitched a little bit before the draft, sitting his usual 92-95 mph. He ended up at Virginia anyway, where he regressed. He was sitting 91 mph throughout his draft year, but he’s already had a rebound after leaving Charlottesville. He’s back to sitting 92-95 and is reaching back for 96-97, velocity he’s held for the last two seasons. His slider has also gotten much harder, up from 82-83 mph in college to his present 85-88 mph range at peak. Vasil will flash an above-average changeup and his curveball’s shape is much different than that of his slider. Much more about control than precise command, Vasil’s craftsmanship as a pitcher is still a bit of a mixed bag. For instance, Vasil throws a ton of strikes but tends to live in the very middle of the zone with both his fastball and slider. He’ll ideally polish feel for locating those pitches at the letters and on the glove-side edge of the plate, respectively. His comfort throwing right-on-right changeups and using his curveball as a backfoot weapon against lefties makes it tough for hitters to sit on either of those other pitches. Armed with a deep repertoire of average pitches, Vasil projects as a no. 4/5 starter.

A $275,000 signee from 2022, Baez hit well in the DSL (.242/.341/.403) but the really impressive data point was his peak exit velos, which are nearly big league average and are plus-plus on the scale for a teenage hitter. Baez is a stocky and strong 18-year-old who scouts think will eventually move to second or third base, where he’s already played a bit. He has a chance to hit enough to not only be an everyday infielder, but potentially a power-hitting impact player. Baez’s bat speed is incredible. His in-the-box movements are big, elaborate and showy, as if choreographed by a high school drama club, but Baez is a compact quarter stick of dynamite whose short levers might just enable such a style of hitting to work. He’s already showing some underlying swing-and-miss yellow flags against rookie-level pitching, but his tool package and statistical performance are much more exciting than they are scary at this point. Baez doesn’t have the positive long-term physical projection that Mark Vientos, Ronny Mauricio, or even Brett Baty (who was a high school underclassman) had when they were his age. He’s more likely to be built like a catcher at age 23 than he is a middle infielder — think of Baez like a Juan Uribe starter kit. He’s at risk of not having a true position, but his offensive potential gives Baez a puncher’s chance to profile at just about any of them.

A Canadian high schooler from the Toronto area, Ziegler was in a bind ahead of the 2021 draft because travel restrictions were going to make it hard for him to be seen by scouts. He transferred to TNXL Academy, an athletics “school” in Florida, for his pre-draft spring. The Mets made him their second round pick and signed him for just over $900,000, then shut him down during the regular season. He began incorporating his secondary stuff into his repertoire much more often during his first pro outings in 2022, with his splitter coming to the forefront as Ziegler’s best and most consistently nasty pitch. He struggled with command, however, and because Ziegler doesn’t have the prototypical pitching prospect’s frame at a fairly mature six feet tall, he may end up in the bullpen. A 2022 IL stint due to biceps tendinitis and surgery to remove bone spurs ahead of the 2023 season add to his relief risk. But Ziegler’s delivery is very athletic, and the power and balance he shows in his lower half, as well as the flexibility of his upper back, generates optimism that he might yet throw harder than his current 91-96 mph range. Because his delivery is also of the high-effort variety, there may never be strikes, though, so here Ziegler is projected as a three-pitch impact reliever.

An old school power pitcher, Tidwell has a big, broad-shouldered frame, a mid-90s fastball, and a biting slider for which he shows fairly consistent glove-side feel. His feel for changeup location is much less consistent, but Tidwell will occasionally flash a plus one. He was only a true freshman in 2021 and missed a chunk of the 2022 college season with a shoulder injury, so there’s arguably more changeup projection here than is typical for a college prospect due to Tidwell’s lack of reps; he only threw about 48 innings in 2022 when you combine his college and pro workload. Tidwell’s 2022 shoulder injury and his somewhat violent delivery are a little bit scary. He’s very tightly wound and stiff, more mechanically similar to big league relievers than workhorse starters. The rate and quality of his fastball strikes also tends to be mixed, and when things are working, he’s more of an in-zone bully than someone with precise command. This, combined with the shape of his fastball, makes him vulnerable to in-zone contact more than you’d guess for someone sitting in the mid-90s. Tidwell has struggled to throw strikes early in 2023 and looks reliever-y enough for his pre-draft FV grade to come down a little bit. It’s still early, but things here are trending toward the bullpen, and while Tidwell’s stuff is good, it isn’t so good that he’d easily project as a set-up man or better if such a shift eventually occurs.

Signed for just shy of $2 million in January, Gutierrez was perhaps the best defensive catching prospect in the entire 2023 international amateur class, and while he filled out considerably between when he agreed to sign and when he actually put pen to paper, Gutierrez hasn’t suddenly turned into Ronnier Quintero or anything like that. It also hasn’t changed where he fits on defense — he’s still a virtual lock to stay at the position and projects as a plus glove there. It gives him a backup catcher’s floor, and Gutierrez has the power to profile as an everyday player if he can get to that pop via sufficient contact. His swing is compact enough to be optimistic about it, but we won’t really know much about the hit tool until Gutierrez starts generating data. He’s likely to spend the 2023 summer in the DSL.

Larez signed for $1.5 million in January and is an athletic, well-rounded, righty-hitting infielder with a decent shot to stay at shortstop. His defensive footwork and hands are great and he has just enough arm for the left side of the infield. Because he’s more compact than the big-framed, longer-levered teenage prospects, he lacks overt power projection and will likely have to make a superlative rate of contact to project as an everyday player. Larez’s hitting hands are quick, but his swing looks relatively grooved. He’s much more likely to turn into a solid utilityman than he is to really blow up and be a star.

The extremely projectable Rodriguez’s 2021 was about as exciting as a 12-inning pro debut can be. Quickly elevated to Low-A at age 18, Rodriguez was touching 97 mph from the left side and his fastball’s riding action, as well as the vertical snap he was getting on his curveball, made him a prototypical power pitcher prospect. We entered 2022 looking for Rodriguez to hold the velocity he showed in 2021 across a larger innings count. Instead, he had Tommy John in March and missed the entire season.

As of list publication, Rodriguez is now 14 months removed from surgery. He has progressed to throwing live BPs and supposedly looks quite good. If we take his 2021 stuff quality at face value and assume that’s Rodriguez’s true talent level, then he belongs next to Calvin Ziegler on this list. In part because the pandemic squashed what would have been his first pro season, Rodriguez has barely pitched as a pro, and when he was showing us 97 mph heat, he was coming off an extended period of rest and had only worked a dozen innings. It feels too aggressive to value him at that level right now, but if Rodriguez is sitting in the mid-90s again when he gets back into affiliated games, then he’ll deserves a quick hook into an impact FV tier and maybe even to Brooklyn. The 2023 season was supposed to be his 40-man evaluation year, and if not for his surgery he would have been on pace to spend most of it at High-A and maybe make an argument to be added to the roster after the season. Now he’s likely to spend most of the year in St. Lucie, first with the complex group and then the FSL roster.

Butto has a plus changeup and throws lots of strikes, though he adopted more of a power pitcher’s style of fastball usage in 2022, bullying hitters at the letters and operating less efficiently because of this change. While his early 2023 walk numbers are troubling, Butto’s command looks totally fine. He’s locating his heater up and to his arm side, his slider is almost always on the glove-side corner of the plate, and his changeup lives at or just below the bottom of the strike zone. Aside from his changeup, Butto’s repertoire is average or below. There was a stretch early in 2022 when he was reaching back for 96-97 mph and sitting 94, but more recently Butto’s fastball has been back in its usual 92-94 range, and it doesn’t have the huge carrying life that would enable it to play as a bat-misser in the strike zone. Currently a competent spot starter at Triple-A, expect Butto to settle into a fifth starter role as his options run dry.

After he struggled early in 2022, Hamel turned a corner in June and was dominant through the middle of the summer with St. Lucie. He earned a mid-year promotion to Brooklyn and struck out 145 batters in just 119 innings across the entire 2022 slate. The Mets didn’t bother sending him back to Brooklyn to start 2023 and shipped Hamel straight to Binghamton, where he’s again striking out more than a batter per inning while walking enough hitters to remain in starter/reliever limbo.

Hamel has a riding low-90s fastball and two good breaking balls. While his heater plays best at the letters, his natural release tends to cause it to finish down and to his arm side. Ideally, Hamel will polish up his fastball location in his mid-20s. Automatic pitch tagging can sometimes conflate his sliders and curveballs because some of his sliders have huge vertical depth. Though his slider doesn’t finish down and away from the zone with great consistency, it’s nasty enough that the ones that back up can still freeze hitters. Hamel’s mid-70s rainbow curveball (it sits 73-77; the sliders sometimes have curveball shape but are consistently 80 mph and above) has cartoonish depth and is tough for hitters to square even if they spot it popping out of his hand. After his changeup usage spiked to 13% in 2022, it’s back down in the 5% range to start 2023 and remains a below-average pitch. Hamel’s tendency to locate his fastball down and to his arm side would actually help set up his changeup as a finishing pitch if he threw it more. There’s enough happening here for Hamel to project as a lower-impact member of a big league staff within the next couple of years, a backend starter if his command sharpens a bit and a long reliever if it doesn’t.

Núñez was among the 2019 minor league leaders in fastball spin rate, but he wasn’t throwing all that hard. His heater generated a 15% swinging strike rate even though he sat just 89-93 mph as a starter. The Giants made him their 2020 Rule 5 pick, but he never threw a pitch for them due to Tommy John surgery and was returned to the Mets during the 2021-22 offseason. They moved him to the bullpen, where Núñez began throwing extremely hard coming off of surgery, sitting 94-97 and kissing 98-99. He spent most of 2022 with Binghamton and was sent back there to start 2023 before being promoted to Syracuse at the end of April.

It’s been tough to get a real grip on what’s happening with Núñez’s repertoire. My notes have him throwing a curveball back in 2019, but he was understandably fastball-reliant as he got his footing coming off TJ, and he had begun mixing in some hard 87-90 mph sliders. So far in 2023, Núñez’s velocity has dipped a little bit across the board and now it looks like he has two breaking balls that run into one another in the 82-84 mph range. Some of them (the ones in the 84-87 mph range) are definitely sliders. Núñez’s fastball isn’t missing nearly as many bats as it was in the lower minors and his spin rate is down a bit even though his velocity is up relative to his days as a starter. It doesn’t feel great for a 26-year-old pitcher to still have this many things that need polishing, but bear in mind that Núñez basically missed three years and has only thrown about 50 innings since his return. The athletic and mechanical components here are still pretty exciting, as Núñez generates big hip/shoulder separation and has a powerful lower half. It might make sense to pare his repertoire down a little bit. Whatever has to be done for Núñez to have a plus breaking ball so he can be a core middle reliever, which is still his projection.

Sarmiento is the best defender in this system and projects to be a plus shortstop at peak. He surprised the industry by posting a competent statline in the 2022 DSL after most of the amateur scouting apparatus dismissed him as being too small to swing a bat with any kind of verve or precision. Sarmiento is really small and needs to get stronger to be any kind of big leaguer at all, but his feel for contact is pretty impressive for such a young, skinny player. His defense gives him a floor of sorts, assuming Sarmiento can become strong enough to be a viable offensive player. His mid-range outcomes are that of a bench infielder and utility guy leaned on for his glove.

Reimer lacks a real standout tool, but he does a little bit of everything. He has the arm and actions for third base (though his instincts aren’t great), and he could grow into having something close to average hit and power tools. Reimer’s swing is relatively conservative; he is often on time and looking to pull. He has the strength to do doubles damage with this simplistic approach, a style of swinging that’s a good fit for a hitter of middling athleticism. Reimer is a 40 athlete with a 55 frame, so whether you want to project on him growing into more than just doubles pop depends on what characteristics you want to hang your hat on. Here he’s projected as if he’ll grow into enough juice to be a 40-grade four corners role player but not enough to be a regular.

Díaz dominated the DSL in 2021, sitting mostly 91-92 mph with a great curveball. In 2022, after spending some time in extended spring training, he was essentially skipped over the GCL and sent right to Low-A toward the end of May, and while his surface-level performance wasn’t great there, he showed good stuff for a somewhat projectable 18-year-old pitcher. Díaz was sitting 93-95 (without great life or movement) and showed advanced feel for his curveball, a two-plane yakker in the upper 70s. Díaz could land it in the zone or bury it for whiffs. While his fastball seemed hittable despite its velocity and Díaz had no real third pitch, his precocious on-mound poise, studly build, arm strength, breaking ball quality, and breaking ball command were all great foundational components for such a young pitcher. He seemed tee’d up to climb the minor league ladder ahead of his chalk 40-man timeline, but instead Díaz needed Tommy John in late March of 2023 and won’t see action again until 2024.

Assuming a typical rehab here, Díaz will be back early enough in 2024 to pitch a pretty good chunk of innings, about as many as his 2022 mark. He pitched 55 innings with St. Lucie that year, and we can estimate he worked about 15 to 20 more in extended before he was assigned. It’s typical for pitchers’ workloads to increase by about 20 innings per year while they develop, which would put Díaz on pace to throw about 110 innings in his first option year. All of this is to say that while he’s no longer on the fast track, Diaz is still in position to comfortably be developed as a starter once he returns. A key detail to pay attention to when Díaz comes back is whether his delivery and/or the type of movement on his fastball has been altered during rehab, since it seemed to play down while he was healthy.

Ridings is already on his fourth org since being drafted by the Cubs in 2016 out of tiny Haverford College in Pennsylvania. The Cubs traded him to Kansas City for contact-oriented outfielder Donnie Dewees in 2019. He pitched in the Royals system that year (his fastball sat 92-95 mph at this time) and was released after the 2020 season that didn’t happen. Ridings signed with the Yankees a few months later and reemerged in a huge way in 2021. He had a four-tick velo spike and was suddenly sitting 96-99 while generating an 18% swinging strike rate in the minors, among the highest in the entire org. The 6-foot-8 giant skipped over A-ball entirely and went right to Double-A, then to Triple-A, and then to the big leagues. A 2022 shoulder impingement sidelined Ridings for all but two innings at the very end of the year. Even though his stuff was largely the same as the year before, the Yankees tried to sneak him off the 40-man through waivers and the Mets pounced.

Ridings has missed all of 2023 to this point due to a lat strain that has him on the 60-day IL. Yes, he is approaching age 28, but he’s still rookie eligible and therefore a listable “prospect.” His injuries cloud and add variance to his forecast but when he was last healthy, Ridings looked like a late-inning reliever with a devastating fastball/slider combo. He’s a potential midseason bullpen addition from within for a club still looking to rebound from the preseason loss of closer Edwin Díaz.

After he pitched well in relief last year, the Mets moved the hard-throwing Gomez into the rotation at High-A Brooklyn to begin the 2023 season. He made three short starts there before being put on the 60-day IL with an injury that a non-Mets front office person has listed in their club’s system as Tommy John. Last year, Gomez sat 94-96 mph and peaked at 99 out of the St. Lucie bullpen while bending in a slider in the 84-88 mph range that was above average due more to its velocity than its raw movement. Some of the few changeups he’d throw had encouraging vertical drop, enough that Gomez looked like a potential three-pitch prospect who had a shot to start on paper. But his feel for throwing strikes, especially quality fastball strikes, was not anywhere close to where it would need to be for Gomez to start. He could be a really nasty reliever, though, an outcome that was made more likely by his injury.

Elevated from the extended spring group to St. Lucie at the beginning of May, Lara has looked good in center field and is hitting for power so far. His ultra-aggressive approach and the odd, curt nature of his swing indicate that he has substantial OBP and hit tool-related bust risk even though he’s had hot stretches where he’s hitting for impressive power. Lara’s wrists are really strong for a teenage hitter and the pull power aspect of his game is real, as is his center field defense. But the hit tool indicators are so severe that, even though he’s several years younger than some of the other risky low-lever hitters on this list, Lara should be considered a toolsy, low probability sleeper rather than an impact prospect.

Big lefty bat speed headlines Perozo’s skill set, as the 20-year-old catcher has exciting power potential for that position. His hands are lightning fast, and Perozo’s swing orbits his entire body and finishes with an explosive flourish in the dirt of the batter’s box behind him. It’s a long, uppercut bat path driven by his bottom hand, and it’s all but certain that he’ll swing and miss a ton at high fastballs throughout his career, but Perozo’s feel for oppo gap doubles and his ability to golf out low-ball contact is exciting and rare for a catcher. After he had trouble transitioning from the complex level to A-ball in 2022, he’s finally getting traction with St. Lucie in 2023, catching most of the time while looking to be in better shape than he was last year. He still has a long developmental path to walk as a defender and even though 2023 was slated to be his 40-man evaluation year, Perozo is probably going to have to barbecue in A-ball this year and next. Still, his power gives him value as a prospect.

One of several over-slot high schoolers the Mets drafted and signed in 2019, Allan has thrown just 10 pro innings due to a series of major surgeries (a 2021 Tommy John, a 2022 ulnar nerve transposition, and a UCL revision in January of 2023). The most recent healthy reports on Allan come from the 2020 alternate site (remember the alt site?) and instructs, when he was sitting 92-95 mph with his usual hammer curveball and a changeup with huge bat-missing action. He had among the best stuff in the 2019 draft but was an “eye of the beholder” prospect at his $2.5 million ask due to Allan’s softer build and violent (but very explosive and exciting) arm action.

This is an instance where there’s a huge gap between the player’s Future Value and their scouting evaluation because the former is so impacted by injuries. The 2023 season was supposed to be Allan’s 40-man evaluation year — four years have gone by quickly. Until he’s healthy and on a mound next year, he’s just a high-profile player to have on the radar.

Dominguez was a known and not all that highly regarded pitching prospect at the beginning of 2019, when he was a 17-year-old Venezuelan righty with some effort who sat 90-93 mph. Then he was 94-97 at an event in the summer, which caused teams to reconsider him, though some clubs wanted to see it another time or two to make sure it wasn’t an anomaly. The Mets moved quickly, but Dominguez’s $95,000 bonus reflected some level of uncertainty. Between when Dominguez was waiting for his contract to be approved and the end of Dominican instructs, he continued to sit in the mid-90s and hit 99, flashing a plus breaking ball at times. He was then deployed with extreme caution in 2021, working in two-inning relief stints with significant rest between outings, sitting 94-95 with sink. He had Tommy John not long before the 2022 season and was still rehabbing as of list publication. Given how he was deployed before the surgery, it’s fair to project Dominguez as a reliever at this point, but he’s still a high-priority backfield target in case things have somehow taken a leap coming out of rehab.

As physically impressive as any prospect in the system, Dominguez has a classic right fielder’s skill set with big power and bat speed, as well as a suspect hit tool. He clubbed 20 homers in the Florida State League in 2022 but still struck out in 39% of his plate appearances as a 22-year-old. He is extremely twitchy and has exciting long-term physical projection; even at age 23, Dominguez is built like he’ll continue to add strength and power into his mid-20s. But for a hitter that age to be striking out this much against Low-A pitching is a huge red flag, and Dominguez is a low-probability prospect because of his lack of contact skill. He’s had very little 2023 playing time due to two IL stints, the most recent of which is due to a dislocated finger. He’s an important long-term follow in this org in case Dominguez’s hit tool clicks or a rival club thinks their dev group can make it click enough for him to play a power-over-hit fourth or fifth outfield role.

Fañas (he uses a tilde in his name but his minor league player page does not, and for technical reasons, we can’t add it to certain parts of the site without breaking stuff) signed for $1.5 million in 2022 and spent the summer in the DSL (he posted a .627 OPS) before coming to the U.S. for 2023 spring training. He got into a couple Grapefruit League games before settling into extended spring training, where Fañas looks to have filled out considerably. Once a lithe, projectable center field prospect, he’s now very muscular and almost maxed out to the point where any more mass will probably slow him down or be detrimental to his mobility. A switch-hitter who creates significant power despite a short swing, Fañas lacks great tactile feel for the barrel, especially from the right side of the plate, and now that he looks much more like a corner outfield defender than he does a viable center fielder, it’s very important that this aspect of his game improves. Though he was a high-profile amateur prospect, Fañas is now a power-driven dev project who needs to prove he can make enough contact to profile toward the bottom of the defensive spectrum.

Tong presented an interesting pre-draft dichotomy. He was an old-for-the-class high schooler who was also very skinny and arguably more projectable than a lot of pitchers younger than him. His velocity also grew considerably in the year leading up to the draft, with Tong often working in the 92-95 mph range for the Langley Blaze (a select team of Canadian high schoolers who play all over the U.S. during the spring) and in the 2022 MLB Draft League. Tong has a short arm action and a north/south stroke that imparts ride on his fastball and shapely depth on his curve. It might be hard for him to find a distinct third and fourth pitch from that arm slot, but this fastball/curveball foundation is pretty good for a $600,000 sign with starter-quality athleticism. He didn’t pitch at an affiliate after the draft and began 2023 in extended spring training, without an official pro game under his belt as of list publication. Tong is a fine long-term dev project to have in the bottom of your system.

The undersized Meyer is a solid defensive catcher with a plus arm, and he has long performed above the average of whatever minor league level he’s been assigned to, mostly due to contact skills rather than any kind of power. Even though he’s off to a slow start at Syracuse in 2023, Meyer still looks like he has average bat-to-ball skills and 30-grade power. It isn’t sexy, but it’s enough to hop around as the third catcher on someone’s 40-man for a half decade.

A 2021 undrafted free agent, Hartwig reached Double-A less than a year after he signed and is now at Triple-A Syracuse, where he’s finally meeting some resistance and running a high ERA early in 2023. He sits 94-95 mph, and while his fastball plays down a little bit due to lack of command, it’s sink is heavy enough to induce grounders even when Hartwig misses his spot. Our previous notes have Hartwig commanding an upper-70s slider, but his breaker has gotten harder (it’s averaging 82-83 mph in 2023) and now has a “sweeper” designation, and Hartwig is having trouble getting it to finish off the plate. Whether Hartwig is simply trying to throw his slider harder or has recently tweaked his grip, he doesn’t have nearly as good a feel for it as he did in 2022. He’ll show you the occasional changeup and cutter but both are rare. A pretty typical sinker/slider low-leverage reliever, Hartwig will be a viable up/down option as soon as he finds feel for locating his slider again.

Montes de Oca was slated to undergo surgery to remove bone spurs from his elbow in March, recover for about four months, and maybe be back in action by the end of the season. Instead doctors discovered his UCL to be “insufficient” during the surgery, so (surprise!) Montes de Oca also needed a Tommy John. He was among the hardest throwers in the minors last year, with the emphasis on thrower in this case because he also has one of the most violent deliveries. His arm swing is very late relative to foot strike and can be hard for him to time. The good news is that Montes de Oca’s stuff is good enough to do damage even when he’s not locating. He sits in the upper 90s, and his fastball has big tailing movement and pairs nicely with the glove-side length of his slider, which is how he most often finishes hitters. As ugly as his delivery is, it helps make hitters uncomfortable, and BMdO was missing a ton of upper-level bats last year. He has a shot to be on the up/down bullpen shuttle back and forth from Syracuse next season.

Another of the many recent pitching prospects who were squeezed out of the rotation at the University of Florida, Scott worked out of the Gators bullpen throughout his college career but has moved into a pro rotation and has performed well into the mid-minors. He’s retained most of his velocity even as his per-outing innings count has built to five, sitting 92-95 mph and touching a little above that, though his fastball’s shape isn’t great for missing bats. Scott’s power, mid-80s slider is his best pitch, and hitters struggle to identify it out of hand. Scott also throws a ton of strikes, and threw both his heater and slider for strikes about 70% of the time in 2022. He’s 23, but this is a late-blooming prospect who has some rep-based projection because he pitched out of the bullpen in college and missed most of the 2020 season due to the pandemic. There’s a chance Scott’s changeup develops enough for him to pitch at the back of a big league rotation, but it’s more likely he’s going to be a mid-90s sinker/slider reliever.

The gigantic Stuart has a tailing heater that sits 93-94 mph early in starts and loses a tick or two late. His fastball has enough action that he can run it back over the glove-side corner of the plate or blow up hitters in on their hands even though it isn’t all that hard and, partly because of Stuart’s size, hitters take a pitch or two to adjust to the line on his heater. His sweeping, two-plane slider is nasty when Stuart locates it, but when it finishes in the strike zone, it is very juicy. These two pitches have mostly been enough for Stuart to pitch well as a starter at High-A. Developmentally, he’s a little behind the typical 23-and-a-half-year-old college pitcher, but Stuart spent most of his college career in the bullpen and it’s impressive that he’s working five (or more) strong innings at a time in Brooklyn less than a year after he was drafted. Because he only recently turned pro, Stuart still has a long developmental runway and interesting enough stuff to value as a fifth to seventh starter prospect.

Once a deep sleeper in the A’s and Pirates systems, the ultra-lanky Ramos has made a dramatic change to his delivery and is now a funkadelic, low-slot reliever. He sits in the low-to-mid-90s and creates huge tailing action on his fastball because of his slot, while his sweeping slider flashes huge two-plane movement. Ramos still isn’t totally comfortable with this delivery and, because of his length, his misses are huge when his delivery is out of sync. He throws a lot of non-competitive pitches right now and needs to find a more consistent release, but he has the stuff of a righty-dousing reliever.

Hardy’s inclusion here is all about long-term projection and athleticism. He isn’t especially young and doesn’t throw all that hard, nor does Hardy have even average command right now. What he does have is plus-plus athleticism, a perfect pitcher’s body, a delivery that exhibits huge hip/shoulder separation and crossfire action similar to Freddy Peralta or Adam Ottavino, and plus-flashing sweep on his slider. Athletes with frames like Hardy’s tend to dial things in enough over time to play some kind of big league role. At this age, it’s unlikely Hardy will have a velo boost that propels him into higher-leverage work, but his current stuff puts an eventual middle-inning role within reach if his command improves.