New York Mets Top 45 Prospects

McLean enters 2026 as the game’s top pitching prospect, the latest milestone in his meteoric rise from a talented two-way player at Oklahoma State to the front of the Mets rotation. Coming off of a 2024 season in which he posted respectable but mediocre numbers in Double-A, 2025 McLean worked his way into the big leagues by August and dominated from there. In 48 innings across eight starts, he posted a 2.06 ERA and 2.97 FIP with 57 strikeouts while surrendering only four long balls. Remember, this is a third-round pick, a guy who hit more than he pitched in college. The stuff was good and he was a real prospect heading into last year’s breakout campaign, but the idea that he was a prospective no. 1 starter was at least one bridge too far.

Not anymore. Last year, McLean learned how to harness his precocious raw spin into a couple of wipeout breaking balls, keying his transformation from interesting arm to frontline starter. He’s now got just about all you look for in a no. 1. He has arm strength, arsenal depth, multiple out pitches, elite movement, and good control (especially considering how violently his ball moves), and he even comes relatively stretched out after firing 90 or more pitches in each of his big league starts. Everybody has warts: You could ask for better fastball shape or a little more natural deception here, but the overwhelming quality of everything else does more than enough to shore up these comparatively minor deficiencies.

More impressive than the components is how they work together. McLean’s arsenal bends every direction, and he has the command to tunnel and sequence those pitches to their full effect. Righties in particular will have a hard time with his bread-and-butter sweeper-sinker mix: His fastball has plus velocity and late life, while the sweeper is firm and razor sharp. Guess wrong and you’ll look foolish; guess right and you may not hit it anyway. And of course, there’s still the curve to worry about, an 80-grade hammer that nobody could do a thing with last year.

And yet McLean still has paths forward. The 24-year-old has thrown just 332 innings since high school and, good health willing, there’s a lot of runway left to develop his command, find another inch or two of vertical break on the four-seamer, refine his changeup, find more ways to sequence — to learn how to pitch essentially. It’s a scary proposition given the weapons at hand, and one that justifies ranking this pitcher, with all the inherent volatility in the job, third overall in baseball and first in the Mets system.

Benge was a two-way player at Oklahoma State where, in addition to his first-round pedigree in the outfield, he also sat 92-95 mph with a plus-flashing changeup. The Mets selected him 19th overall in the 2024 draft and signed him for just shy of $4 million. He slashed .327/.436/.538 through July before a late-season swoon with Syracuse, though it was a feat just to race there. The excellent statistical performance extends to Benge’s underlying data: In 2025, he posted a 48% hard-hit rate (the big league average is 42%), 80% contact rate, and 106 mph EV90 (big league average is 104), and even Benge’s measured bat speed during his rough go at Triple-A was two standard deviations better than the big league mean.

Benge also checks a lot of visual scouting boxes. He can manipulate the barrel all over the hitting zone, and he’s an explosive rotator whose swing has enormous finish behind him at times. We have some nits to pick with the length of Benge’s otherwise gorgeous swing, which (perhaps concerningly) looks like a left-handed version of Kristian Campbell’s cut. This may make Benge more vulnerable to elevated fastballs than he has been to this point, but we still like the bat speed and barrel control parts of his profile enough to think he’ll produce above-average offense.

It’s on defense that Benge’s profile has taken the biggest step forward. He played right field at Oklahoma State but has taken to center field in pro ball, and now projects as an above-average glove there. He runs well, takes good routes into the gaps, and has comfort at the catch point. Considering he was recently a two-way guy and has only focused on playing center field for about a year, he might even have another half grade more in the tank than we’ve projected here. The same is true of Benge’s overall strength, as he’s quite wiry for a 23-year-old and still has room for mass. Though his offense is not without potential pitfalls, so long as Benge is hitting for power on contact and playing a good center field, he should be an above-average regular for the next half decade or so.

Tong ripped through the upper levels of the minors with an uncommon level of dominance. After striking out 160 batters and allowing just three home runs across 113 innings in 2024, he then bettered both of those figures across the same number of Double- and Triple-A frames last season. A 1.43 ERA across 22 starts with more than 14 strikeouts per nine looks like something a good high school prospect might do; to dominate seasoned professionals in such a manner is ridiculous. He led the minors in strikeouts in 2025 (179) even though he made his big league debut and pitched 37 fewer innings than the guy who finished second.

Both Tong’s stuff and delivery are notable parts of his profile. Let’s touch on the stuff first. He throws very hard, up to 99 mph, and he sat 94-97 last year. Even if he winds up dialing the velo back a tick over the course of an arduous big league season, plus carry and extension should let this pitch play like a plus offering. The jury is out everywhere else, though. His change flashes above average, but both his slider and curve look fringy. He mostly uses the latter, and while it has a nice 12-6 shape to it, it’s not particularly sharp and has a bit of a hump. It doesn’t project as a big bat-misser, and that’s probably part of why, early in the spring of 2026, Tong added a new cutter in the 90-93 mph range.

Tong is easily a plus athlete, and his looseness allows him to do things in his delivery that most humans can’t. The length of his stride, the whippiness in his arm, and his ability to use every ounce of his body all stand out immediately. Still, even with his body control, it’s a tricky delivery to sequence: He starts by coiling into a rock and fire, then scapulates into a long stride down the mound, and releases with big spinal tilt. The effort involved produces a significant heel grind and forces him to spin off the mound and finish with his back nearly facing home plate. There’s a lot of head movement throughout, and his stroke is pretty deep too, so while the arm action is clean, it’s also another tricky element to line up with everything else.

Tong’s athleticism gives him a chance to throw strikes, and potentially good ones, even with all of this going on. For now though, that skill lags, and he has a worrying tendency to miss over the middle of the plate rather than off of it. His stuff was good enough to overwhelm minor league hitters wherever he locates, but big league bats gave him a rougher ride: They socked three dingers in Tong’s 18.2 innings of work, and also walked nine times. There’s every chance that his Mets outings were a learning experience that will prompt an adjustment in how he attacks going forward, but it’s also possible that he doesn’t have the command to pull it off.

There’s also the not-insignificant matter of durability to consider. This is a concern for every pitcher, and to be fair to Tong, he hasn’t had a significant injury. But he’s also a slight guy with a very high-effort delivery; it’s fair to worry about how he’ll hold up. Ultimately, we think the fastball and change are good enough for Tong to belong on the Top 100. There are fallbacks too, because if the command or fringy spin push him to the bullpen, he could be good enough there to justify this grade as a high-leverage reliever. Whatever shape it takes, though, Tong has the look of a pitcher who’ll burn brightly but quickly.

Wenninger entered the 2025 season with a backend starter projection on the strength of his control, a plus split, and an average fastball. He picked up a couple ticks of velo at Double-A Binghamton, which prompted a re-assessment and ultimately the higher valuation here.

Wenninger works with both a sinker and a four-seamer. He can find both lanes with each of them, and mixes and matches smartly depending on what he’s trying to do. The heat sets up his split, which has big fade and sink. It missed a ton of bats last year, though sometimes it breaks a tick too early to entice hitters.

The development of his breaking balls will be key, and there are layers to unpack here. Wenninger’s curve and slider overlap substantially to the point where we’re not always sure which is which, and the slider in particular can look like a tighter, harder version of his curve. That flavor of slider may be the best version of all his breaking balls, as the mid-80s, 11-5 bender is the one that looks nastiest visually. We don’t mind the inconsistent shapes — it could actually be advantageous for him — but the inconsistent quality is a bigger issue, as he’ll show you anything from a 40 to the occasional 60. Regardless of what they look like, we want to see fewer flat, soft, and backed-up breakers, because those are going to get him in trouble. Indeed, during 2026 Grapefruit League action, Wenninger’s breaking balls have been a little bit harder, more often in the 83-87 mph range. That’s hard enough that automatic pitch tagging wants to call many of them cutters, but the downhill angle on Wenninger’s stuff effectively causes them to play like sliders and curveballs, so we’re sticking to labeling them as such.

Wenninger is a body-control-over-twitch type of athlete. He repeats his relatively slow delivery and stroke well, and again limited free passes at an above-average rate (2.79 walks per nine) in 2025. He isn’t especially deceptive, though he does get good extension; sometimes you can live with fair deception if it comes with above-average control and an out pitch. One other thing going for him: length. Perhaps in part because he hasn’t had the kind of high-octane stuff that makes coaches and dev folks fret about potential injuries for most of his career, Wenninger is actually pretty stretched out: His 135.2 innings last year were second in the Eastern League and fourth in all of Double-A. He projects as a no. 4 who is just about ready for show time.

Reimer was a priority fourth rounder out of a high school on the eastern edge of the greater Los Angeles metro area and signed for $775,000 rather than head to Washington for college. After missing a huge chunk of the 2024 season due to a hamstring injury, he had an outstanding 2025 and hit .282/.379/.491 across two levels, including two-and-a-half months at Double-A Binghamton to close the year.

This is a bat-first prospect with a well-rounded hit/power blend that is average or better in every regard, except for Reimer’s performance against sliders. He has great rhythm, balance, and timing in the batter’s box, and his hands are capable of doing doubles damage to all fields, with home run power coming to his pull side. Because he’s often geared to pull, he swings inside of a fair number of sliders, including the occasional whiff inside the strike zone. We have some internal disagreement about how safe and stable Reimer’s hit tool is because of this slider bugaboo and the stiff, tight nature of his lower body, which can make it tough for him to dip and scoop lower pitches. But overall, Reimer makes hitting look easy, and he should have the hit/power combination to profile at third base in an everyday capacity.

Reimer isn’t a great third base defender — his range leaves something to be desired, and his hands are just okay — but his body control and arm strength allow him to make some tough off-platform throws, including ones from deep in the corner. He can play third base but has also seen some reps at first base, and will likely see time at both spots when he’s a big leaguer. Reimer shares some similarities with Isaac Paredes (he’s not quiet as excellent a contact hitter) and Jordan Westburg, and is on track to debut late in 2027.

Ewing was an Alabama commit in Ohio who the Mets scooped up for a $675,000 bonus. Despite dicey early-career strikeout totals, his blazing speed allowed him to thrive as an A-ball hitter in 2023 and 2024. In 2025, essentially repeating Low-A to start the year, Ewing cut his strikeouts considerably (from the 27%-29% range down to 18.6%) while racing to Double-A, stealing 70 bases in the process. He spent the middle two-thirds of the year at High-A Brooklyn, where he slashed .288/.387/.388, a line we think better illustrates his abilities as a hitter than the husky .430 SLG Ewing posted at Binghamton at the end of the year.

Ewing’s speed is the driving force of his entire profile. It’s what has facilitated a successful pro transition from second base to center field, where Ewing spent the bulk of 2024 and 2025 on defense. Though his inexperience in center sometimes shows itself in the form of an overzealous throw or occasional flub, his range is really special and we think he will grow into a plus center field defender at peak. If he keeps improving at the rate he has so far (remember, Ewing only began playing center regularly starting in 2024), that’s going to happen pretty quickly. He played 19 games at second base in 2025, but Ewing has never had the hands for the infield and should only play there in case of emergency.

Ewing’s speed also drives his offense. He leaves the batter’s box as if he were shot out of a canon and runs in the 4.10 range from home to first, turning some singles into doubles and doubles into triples. He tends to hit the ball where it’s pitched, and the way his hands work often leaves him hitting the top of pitches on the inner part of the plate, leading to lots of oppo liners versus fastballs. He sprays all-fields contact and buttons heaters (87% contact rate versus fastballs in 2025) like you’d expect a sub-.400 slugging table-setter to do. This is the sort of skill set we associate with a great lineup’s nine-hole hitter, a second-division center fielder.

Is there an adjustment to be made here that will facilitate more power? Ewing has become meaningfully stronger since signing, but he hasn’t overdone it at the cost of other aspects of his athleticism. If that can continue, and he can add another grade of power deeper into his 20s, then we’re talking about a top 20 player at his position. Ewing’s chalk 40-man roster timeline puts him on track for a post-2027 addition. The plethora of options ahead of him on the Mets depth chart, including other youngsters like Nick Morabito (already on the 40-man) and Carson Benge, makes it unlikely that the team will need to rush him.

It’s unclear whether or not turnover in the Yankees’ international scouting department precipitated Asigen’s shift from one New York team to the other in the weeks leading up to the 2026 international amateur signing period, but that’s what happened. The Mets only had the space to add Asigen to their class because another player with whom they had a multi-million-dollar agreement failed his age/identity verification, voiding his deal. Arguably the best all-around prospect in the 2026 class (he ranked first at FanGraphs), Asigen signed for just shy of $4 million in January.

Asigen’s talent is consistent with that of a high school player who’d feel like a good bet to be selected within the top five picks of a draft, a lefty-hitting, long-term shortstop with exciting physical projection. His low-ball power and bat speed give him rare ceiling, the potential to be a 25-homer weapon who also plays a good shortstop. Where his profile slips some is in his hit tool risk. His swing is so geared for low-ball contact that he struggled with elevated fastballs during some international play, and we just won’t know how he handles pro velo until he’s forced to do it day after day. The hit tool piece of his profile has a little more risk than is typical for a prospect graded this aggressively at this age, but Asigen has overt big league physicality and infield athleticism, and he won’t turn 17 until late August. He has a wide range of potential outcomes — everything from strikeout-prone bust to five-tool shortstop, and the slugging 2B/3B outcomes in between — but a lot of them are really exciting.

Santucci was wild and missed time with a rib injury during his draft year, which pushed him out of the first round and to the Mets with the org’s second-round pick. The early evidence is that player and club make a good match, because the southpaw’s stock is up year over year.

The Mets have reworked Santucci’s delivery. He’s shifted his spot on the rubber toward first base, he’s pitching at a higher tempo, and his finish looks a little cleaner, his arm swing a bit shorter and more fluid. Individually, none of these are massive adjustments, but taken together, he looks significantly more dynamic. Perhaps not surprisingly, he’s throwing a lot more strikes, and he nearly halved his walk rate from 14% at Duke to 8.5% across two levels of pro ball.

Santucci’s stuff and attack haven’t changed nearly as much. He’s still sitting in the mid-90s with above-average vertical break on his fastball, which he pairs with an above-average two-plane slider. He throws those pitches almost exclusively, scattering in just a few changeups here and there. Not surprisingly, the cambio is underbaked. He tends to either release it early and have it miss uncompetitively to the arm side, or he’ll pull it with him.

The development of that third pitch seems important because Santucci’s bread and butter is more good than great. And while he hasn’t run big platoon splits yet, it’s tough to work with a narrow arsenal like this multiple times through a big league order, particularly with fringy or average command. It isn’t time to throw Santucci into the bullpen by any means. He was very good last year — perhaps we should’ve mentioned sooner that he put up a 2.52 ERA with 11.3 strikeouts per nine in 10 starts following a promotion to Double-A — and the improved delivery and control are tangible evidence that he has the aptitude to make adjustments. Finding a reliable changeup is a different kettle of fish, however, and it’ll be interesting to monitor his use of the pitch right out of the gate. He has the ceiling of a no. 4, but for obvious reasons, there’s substantial relief risk as well.

At this point in the list, you’d be forgiven for thinking that draft position says little about a pitcher’s future, so long as that pitcher signs with the Mets. Watson is another example, a seventh rounder who embarked on a three-stop college career starting at Division III Cal Lutheran before winding up in USC’s rotation. There, his athleticism and arm strength were intriguing, even with middling control and strikeout figures.

Watson’s secondaries helped carry him to the upper levels quickly. Like so many others in this system, he’s a low-slot guy with above-average extension and an ability to generate east-west movement. His slider doesn’t move a ton, but it breaks late and his feel for location jumps out. His change has similarly late tail on the other side and generated a 43% miss rate last season. He tends to use those as kill-shot pitches, leaning more on his cutter and fastball early in counts; one possible path forward if he encounters a speed bump would be leaning more on his bread and butter.

Watson has a couple markers in his delivery — head whack, long arm path — that normally signal a future in relief. But Watson is a really good athlete and he might just get away with it. The stroke is long but very loose, and his ability to move the ball around the plate, with particularly evident feel for running his slider off the plate glove side and onto the arm-side edge, speaks for itself. Still, he’s walked a little more than four per nine throughout his college and pro career, which is a lot for a starter. It stems more from his tendency to work the edges than his inability to hit a region, but it’s an issue regardless. The careful approach makes sense with his stuff, which is good, if not quite great, in a length role. He could fit in a no. 4/5 starter type role, with a mid-high leverage relief fallback if he’s not throwing quite enough strikes to stick in the rotation.

Clifford was ranked 57th on the 2022 Draft Board as an advanced, big-framed LF/1B prospect who looked very athletic in the batter’s box and not so much on defense. It took just over $1.25 million for the Astros to keep him from heading to Vanderbilt, and he lit Low-A on fire to start 2023 and was promptly traded to the Mets as part of the Justin Verlander deal. In 2025, he slugged his way to Triple-A Syracuse by clobbering 24 Double-A homers in just 105 games.

Clifford’s dangerous lefty power has fueled an average of 24 homers in each of his three full seasons as a pro. He consistently hits the ball hard (56% hard-hit rate in 2025) and has enough juice to leave the yard to all fields when he gets a mistake he can handle. He also shows the ability to move the barrel around the bottom two-thirds of the zone, and he cuts his stride with two strikes. He’s a good rotational athlete with a high-effort swing; Clifford’s footwork has simplified over the years, but he still hauls off hacks, often losing track of the baseball. It’s possible the changes to his footwork have helped him to stay on time against fastballs better; he hit .194 against them in 2023 and 2024 combined, then .230 against them in 2025. That isn’t great, and Clifford will probably always swing underneath his fair share of elevated fastballs, but it’s playable.

On defense, Clifford has played a mix of first base and both corner outfield spots. He isn’t a great ball-handler at first and is a better fit in the outfield, though the departure of Pete Alonso perhaps makes him more likely to debut on the infield. He’s going to strike out a little too much to profile as a first-division hitter at the lesser corner positions, but he should still be a righty-mashing platoon bat who plays a valuable role, à la Lucas Duda.

Peña received the top bonus in the 2025 international class (outside of Roki Sasaki) at $5 million, a deal that had been in place since well before David Stearns began to helm the org. Peña was viewed as the most advanced bat in the class, a Devers-ish prospect with real feel to hit and power despite a relatively squat frame at a stocky 5-foot-10 or so. He didn’t get off to the best start in 2025 and was hitting .186 at the end of June before he got rocket-engine hot for two months and hit .345/.458/.571 throughout the the rest of the season.

Peña’s hitting hands are explosive and work in a vertical fashion that is mechanically similar to Nolan Gorman, creating big time launch all over the hitting zone. This doesn’t necessarily mean Peña will have Gorman’s strikeout issues — he was able to maintain a 78% contact rate across the entire season, and that includes his ice cold start. His measureable power isn’t as big as some of the other top 2025 DSL performers — he only managed a 24% hard-hit rate and maxed out a ball in play at 105 mph — but we’re inclined to trust our eyes here, and we like the hip-and-hand tension Peña creates enough to consider him a good power-hitting prospect even though he lacks the body projection that is typical for his age. Peña is physically mature for 18, right on down to his five o’clock shadow, and is fairly likely to slide to third base while he’s still in the minor leagues. That puts real pressure on him actualizing above-average hit and power tools, which has us anxious to see how his contact rate holds up upon promotion to the Mets’ St. Lucie complex roster in 2026.

Thornton was a soft-tossing, strike-throwing southpaw at Grand Canyon who fell to the fifth round because his stuff was arguably too light to get big leaguers out. Now he’s throwing a little harder, and he thrived in 2025 — 1.98 ERA, 28.5% K%, 4% BB% — at mostly Double-A before an oblique issue ended his season. Even though Thornton is only sitting 91 now, that might be hard enough for him to succeed thanks to his command and deception. Thornton is a vert slot guy who hides the ball forever as his arms and legs act like a magician’s assistant for his fastball. He was able to generate a slightly above-average miss rate last year, and a plus miss rate on his slider, thanks to his surgical command much more than pure stuff. He can manipulate his slider into more of a cutter, dump in a slow curveball for strikes, and his changeup has projection thanks to the ease and grace of his delivery. If Thornton’s velocity can take another step forward in 2026, the Mets might be tempted to promote him. He’d be as sure a bet to come up and throw strikes as any one in the minors, and he’s one of the couple of minor leaguers for whom it wouldn’t be crazy to put an 80 on his command. A 2026 Pick to Click, this projection has Thornton graded as a no. 4/5 starter. If he’s sitting 93 for the first two months of 2026, it will be tempting to elevate his grade.

Suero is twitchy, strong-for-his-size athlete with uncommon pull power and speed for a catcher, as well as some defensive versatility that should help him carve out a roster spot despite technical issues at each position. He raked at High-A Brooklyn throughout the first half of 2025 and was promoted to Double-A Binghamton at the All-Star Break, finishing with a .233/.379/.407 line across the entire season before he tee’d off on lots of fringy stuff in the Arizona Fall League.

Suero lacks the size of a primary catcher, and because of this struggles with pitch framing and ball blocking. Both would be issues if the Mets suddenly needed him back there every day. He is often too late to the catch point to make borderline pitches look like strikes, and though Suero’s quickness and toughness allows him to make some nifty plays in the dirt, there are instances when his modest size and poor hands prevent him from deadening the baseball. Suero has one hell of an arm, though, and his pop times benefit from how quickly he explodes out of his crouch. He has played 41 career games at first base and 49 in left field. He isn’t a good first baseman, but he runs around well enough to play left. It might be worth it to the Mets to scrap first base for now and allocate those reps to left field, doubling the time Suero spends there and hopefully upping the pace at which he develops better reads and routes.

On offense, Suero’s impressive pound-for-pound strength (he is built like a blitz-stopping third down back) and high-effort swing style make him a dangerous pull-side hitter. His short levers help him stay on time to yank mistakes down the left field line, but it comes at the expense of ugly whiffs against elevated fastballs. It’s the kind of offense that could be palatable on a full-time catcher, but we’re not comfortable projecting Suero’s defense enough for that to be a fit. He does lots of stuff that we value in a meaningfully good bit player: He’s a threat to run into an extra-base hit, he’s fast, he plays multiple positions, and he’s a competitive, high-motor guy. We like Suero as a bat-first backup catcher who can also have a situational impact on a game basically every day.

Gordon got the standard $150,000 bonus of a post-10th rounder back when he signed in 2024. That investment that looks like a bargain now that he’s pitched both well and deep into games at Double-A. In 2025, the undersized righty turned the neat trick of working longer with more strikeouts and fewer walks than he managed in college, and he looks like another success for New York’s scouting and dev apparatus.

Once a flier length arm, Gordon now has the look of a backend starting pitching prospect. He’s calmed his delivery and is throwing strikes more often. His split has also taken a big step forward and is now the best pitch in the holster. He has a fringy fastball, up to 96 but more commonly 91-93, with good carry and command, if not quite enough to project it as much of a bat-misser. He’s also improved his breaking stuff a bit since college. While none of his secondaries looks like the kind of plus out pitch that augurs a mid-rotation future, we see no. 4 upside if his command outpaces our projection. He could help in Queens as soon as this season.

Serrano’s parents were athletes at Stetson and his dad was the Giants’ second rounder in 1998. “ThreEli” has freaky body control for a 6-foot-5 ballplayer, and for how long he is, it’s remarkable that he’s never had strikeout issues. As a draft-eligible sophomore at North Carolina State, Serrano struck out in just 12.8% of his plate appearances and posted a 95% in-zone contact rate. He got off to a hot start a High-A Brooklyn in 2025 before some of the juice got sucked out of his production in the second half. He slugged .298 from June on, and compiled a .222/.332/.358 line across the entire season, though that was still good enough for a 113 wRC+ in the Sally League, and Serrano’s underlying data was more favorable than that. He’s limited to singles damage against lower pitches, but is otherwise a fairly complete hitter whose path to impact is via strength gains.

Serrano’s defensive fit came into greater focus in 2025. He played first base as a college freshman, and then mostly center field as a sophomore and first-full-year pro in 2025. He initially looked lost and uncomfortable out there, but by the end of the season, Serrano was making some nice plays on balls hit directly over his head. Each of his strides eats up so much ground that he glides with ease from gap to gap, and his size is a meaningful advantage at the wall. Here he’s projected as being fine in center, and plus in either corner. We want to see more power from Serrano before forecasting him as a good platoon bat or a regular, but at his size and age, there’s still a chance he comes into some.

Baro entered 2025 as a Pick to Click but posted an underwhelming slash line (.224/.282/.321) with Brooklyn while playing, in order of frequency, shortstop, third, and second base. We like much of what he can do right now — he moves the barrel around pretty well and plays flashy defense — but he lacks big league strength and physicality to such an extent that it’s diminishing his hit tool’s ability to play. Baro’s contact data doesn’t look like that of a .224 hitter — his 75% mark is right around the big league average — but because he isn’t generating good bat speed right now, many of his balls in play are easy for defenses to handle. He struggles to identify breaking balls, and also doesn’t sting them especially well when he does get one he can handle.

Currently lean and lanky, we like Baro’s future strength forecast. He has room for considerable mass and strength without negating the athleticism and mobility that makes him a special defender. Baro is a capable shortstop defender in every way except his throwing accuracy. Too often he pulls the first baseman off the bag, even when he isn’t rushed to make a throw. He has the range, hands, and arm strength (plenty) to play short, but he needs technical polish in the way most 21-year-old infielders do. Some of what Baro is capable of at third base is very special, exciting enough that we wanted to illustrate it here rather than put a 50 on his defense and list him at shortstop. This is a high-variance prospect who is currently so slender that it’s practically mandatory that he gets much stronger if he’s going to be in the big leagues at all. How strong he gets is going to be up to him and the Mets dev group. If he can develop even 45-grade raw power, we might be talking about an everyday third baseman because of what Baro shows flashes of on defense.

Ross transferred to Georgia for his junior season but blew out in his second start and required Tommy John surgery. The Mets popped him in the 13th round anyway, and helped him work back not just from TJ but also another elbow injury he picked up during his rehab. All told, Ross didn’t debut until the very end of the 2024 season.

He’s made up for lost time. He tore through three levels in 2025 and reached Triple-A, where he notched a 1.69 ERA and struck out 39 hitters in 32 innings. Ross has big arm strength and high-octane stuff. Basically everything he throws misses bats, with the CSW (called strikes plus whiffs) percentage on each of them above 30%, which is excellent. His fastball sits near the top of the scale with average carry. His best sliders and splits drop out of the sky on either side of 90 mph, and it’s tough to sit on anything because just when you think you’ve got him figured out, he’ll dump a curve into the zone too.

The reason Ross isn’t right at the top of this list is that he expends a lot of effort generating all that velo and movement. His shoulder leaks a little early, he has a head whack, and he’s prone to missing uncompetitively, particularly north and south. He’s walked more than five per nine as a pro, and while some of that stems from overmatched hitters working into a deep count because they just can’t hit him, his control is barely tenable. There’s late-inning upside if he can just hit the box, which seems possible as he gets further removed from surgery, with a middle relief fallback if he remains a little wild.

Pintaro has taken a circuitous route to the big leagues, going from small-college starter to Indy ball, then into the Mets system as a 26-year-old in 2024, and ultimately to the highest level of a game last season. He has worked mostly as a starter throughout his career, though he’s almost certainly going to relieve in the end.

Pintaro’s crossfire and low slot gives him a touch of deception and helps him generate a lot of east-west movement on everything. The burly righty has both fastballs, and while he can miss bats up top with the four-seamer, it’s the sinker that gets him to a plus grade here. He can reach the upper 90s with it, and while there are guys who get more tail, its blend of velo and movement — and the deep arsenal that prevents hitters from sitting on any one thing — has made him very tough to lift. The sweeper and cutter give him two viable breaking balls that move glove side, and his change emulates the two seamer, with plus tail and sink at its best.

Pintaro has matured a little bit as a strike-thrower in his time with New York, but the effort in his delivery will likely put a cap on his command, and in turn how late in the game managers will want to use him. Still, strikeouts and groundballs are a great combination, and he has the stuff to generate a bunch of both. He projects as a seventh-inning guy, with the durability to go multiple innings as needed.

Morabito is a speedy young outfielder who Eric was reticent to rank on the main section of the Mets list the last several years due to concerns about his swing’s viability versus big league stuff. Those fears still exist, but Morabito’s speed and defensive impact should allow him to play a fifth outfielder role. Before AJ Ewing made a successful transition from second base to center field, there was Morabito, whose blazing speed gives him doubles-robbing range. His ball skills are still developing, but he covers so much ground that he projects to be an impact defender even if he never develops great technical feel for the position.

Morabito’s data as a hitter suggests he has a shot to be an everyday outfielder, as he posted roughly average contact and power metrics, including max exit velocities of 110 mph, in 2025. But his swing works in such a way that he basically can’t pull the baseball in the air. Even among the hitters for whom this is true, Morabito’s spray is extreme, so much so that we not only worry it’s going to limit his ability to hit for any kind of power, but that he might also experience an uptick in strikeouts against big league fastball velo. Still, his speed and defensive ability is going to give him some roster utility as a situational runner and defender.

Voit showed steady improvement as a hitter at Michigan, with a huge reduction in strikeouts (from 22.7% down to 13%) as a junior. He was a two-way player for his first two seasons in Ann Arbor, up to 93 mph on the mound, and not only does that allow for some projection on his hitting ability as he specializes in pro ball, but that arm strength and Voit’s speed might allow him to branch out on defense. His hands aren’t great at second base, but his actions around the bag are. Voit is a tough kid; he stands in there and will take a baserunner in his lap as he’s completing the turn.

Still, his offense might be short for the keystone if it turns out to be the only position he can play. Voit has authoritative hands, but his swing is relatively grooved through the down-and-in portion of the zone. He might have vulnerability to elevated heaters in pro ball. Though Voit consistently makes hard contact, he lacks high-end raw power and is going to have to have a contact/power blend to profile as an everyday second baseman. His contact and peak power data were roughly average for a college hitter. He looks more like a potential second-division second baseman barring any eventual attempts at a couple other positions to facilitate a utility role.

Lambert recently made the rounds online and on social media, as much for his diet — he told MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo that he once ate 30 raw eggs every day for a month in an effort to build velocity — as his considerable arm strength. On the mound, he works with two pitches out of an over-the-top slot. He leans on the fastball, and why not? It sits 95-99, touches triple digits with 20 inches of vertical break, and has good spin to boot. His feel for location is just okay, as he has a big spinal tilt and doesn’t always time his release well, but minor league hitters have been crushed by it.

Less clear is how well Lambert’s slider will play. It’s hard, in the mid-to-upper 80s with good raw spin, but the movement isn’t especially sharp to the eye. He also drops his slot in a way hitters can identify, and some of the better opponents he faced put good swings on it last summer. The data is good, it missed a lot of bats, and perhaps it plays up because he only throws it about a quarter of the time, but it doesn’t look like a wipeout secondary just yet. It may become one, given the aforementioned feel for spin and that Lambert is still pretty green; he’s only thrown 109 innings, summer leagues included, since high school. But while he has the ceiling of a late-inning arm if he can find a plus breaking ball, questions about the command and slider have us shading him down into a mid-leverage projection.

Simon was a fairly ordinary pro prospect in college, a $150,000 signee out of Elon. He has picked up a couple of ticks and gone to more of a drop-and-drive delivery in pro ball, a combination that has allowed him to flourish as he’s ascended the system. After a solid few months at High-A last year, Simon dominated down the stretch at Binghamton, posting a 1.06 ERA with 28.6% strikeout rate and a 4-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

Simon isn’t tall, but don’t call him undersized, as he’s a fit and powerful 200 pounds. That leg strength is the foundation of upper-90s heat, which has a little carry and missed a bunch of bats in the mid levels last year. He leans on the fastball, as his secondaries flash but aren’t consistent. His change behaves like a soft sinker and his slider like a cutter. Sometimes he nails the location in a way that makes them look and play above average, but he doesn’t always pull it off. He’s also a control-over-command arm, as he tends to fall off the mound and pull the ball with him — in the zone, but mostly to the glove side. Still, the fastball is good enough to form the basis of a middle relief projection, which he should reach if he can find a way to get one of his secondaries to a 55 more consistently.

Hagenman’s nine outings in the big leagues gave us a pretty good idea of what he’s good at (length, superb control) and also the predictable drawback, as he surrendered four homers in 23.2 innings. His lack of arm strength or outlier miss traits on the fastball limits his upside, even as he does a bunch of other things well. Good body control, a clean delivery, and a simple arm action help him locate well all over the zone, with better feel for (most of) his secondaries than all but a handful of prospects we’ll write up this year. His slider and cutter are distinct pitches that he can mix and match. The curve seems to be a new addition this spring, and while it doesn’t look sharp yet, he may just need more time to play with it; at the very least, it gives him a north-south look. His best changeups dive late and hard with tail, but it’s the one offering he doesn’t command well and the nature of its movement may preclude much improvement in that regard. It’s the skill set of a no. 5 or 6 starter, and Hagenman figures to contribute length in some capacity.

Guzman’s pro career began with two DSL seasons that saw him strike out at a disqualifying clip (about 33%). Despite this, his improving raw power was enough for the Mets to promote him to the domestic roster, and in 2025, he flipped the script and had an outstanding season split between the complex and FCL rosters, slashing .302/.375/.524 with 34 extra-base hits in 75 games. Incredibly, Guzman only K’d at an 19.1% clip throughout the season. That’s not to say his hit tool is totally out of the woods in terms of risk — his contact rate was still a fringy 71%, with a pretty terrible 67% mark against fastballs — but he swings hard enough that he could be a productive big leaguer if he can maintain those numbers as he climbs the minors.

Guzman is a physical 6-foot-4 and wields plus bat speed. His hands start up above his head, and he will take a big, elaborate, full-body rip with the bat finishing in the dirt behind him as he rotates through contact. He managed an impressive 48% hard-hit rate and 107 mph EV90 in 2025, both comfortably above the big league average. Guzman is often on time to pull when he makes contact, a feature not typically associated with flamboyant swings and poor contact splits against fastballs. This guy has real power and is still a fairly projectable 20-year-old hitter whose contact data took a meaningful leap in 2025, even though it’s still pretty scary, as is Guzman’s chase.

On defense, Guzman plays a mix of first base and both corner outfield spots, and he’s good enough at all three to project that he’ll be able to play a versatile big league role unless he gets too big and slow to play the outfield. A bit more tooled-out than some of the Mets’ recent high college draft picks, Guzman is one of the lower-level New York prospects with a puncher’s chance to be an everyday player if he becomes a more selective hitter.

Jimenez’s physicality made him a notable high school prospect who teams’ models didn’t love because he was old for the class. He matriculated to Miami, where he struggled very badly as a freshman and was forced to transfer to UCF to find playing time. He turned out to be a shrewd addition for the Knights, as Jimenez slashed .329/.407/.575 as a draft-eligible sophomore. A physical infielder with a high-effort swing, Jimenez has a power-over-hit flavor on offense, with plus-plus measurable pop on the college scale. Swing length means Jimenez inside-outs a lot of contact against pitches around his hands, but he can pull what he gets extended against in the middle of the plate and away. A big reason we’re bearish on Jimenez’s stick is because of his swing-happy, chase-prone approach. While he has the arm for shortstop, Jimenez’s muscular build limits his range and mobility on defense, making him a better future fit at third and giving his profile a Maikel Franco flavor.

Díaz dominated the DSL in 2021, sitting mostly 91-92 mph with a promising curveball. In 2022, he was essentially skipped over the FCL and sent right to Low-A, where the 18-year-old was suddenly sitting 93-95 mph. He had a mixed season from a surface performance standpoint, then needed Tommy John in March of 2023 and returned in 2024 to pitch 74.1 innings. In 2025, he was assigned to Brooklyn as a 21-year-old and pitched pretty well (3.80 ERA, 3.44 FIP) while setting a career-best mark for innings (106.2) even though his peak arm strength didn’t return after the surgery. Gone are the 93-95 mph fastballs of his teenage years; now Díaz is sitting 91-94 with below-average movement. But he commands a cutter and sweeper to his glove side and will pull the string on an occasionally good changeup, including against righties, giving Díaz a deep enough mix and pitchability to consider him a viable up/down starter.

Vargas is a converted amateur catcher who was one of the better pure contact hitters in rookie ball throughout 2022 and 2023 amid a trade from Miami to New York for David Robertson. As he has climbed the minors (he spent most of 2025 in Brooklyn) and matured, Vargas’ physical limitations have come into greater focus and he now projects as a small-framed, contact-oriented utilityman.

Vargas is a plus athlete with great defensive range and acrobatic actions. His hands and arm strength are on the fringe of what is ideal at shortstop, but his athleticism helps him cover for these shortcomings most of the time. He has gotten reps at both middle infield spots and should eventually try the outfield and revisit third base, just for the sake of versatility. Vargas’ lack of size and strength not only limits his power output, but also causes his hit tool to play down some. He ran an 80% contact rate in 2025 and has great ball/strike recognition, but aside from the occasional gap double, he hits a lot of bleeders and line drives that tend to find an infielder. Speed, viable shortstop defense, mature at-bat quality, and the ability to put the ball in play will facilitate a modest reserve role for Vargas.

Rodriguez signed for nearly $3 million in 2024 and had an okay DSL debut, with a .219/.359/.356 line in 2024. A hamstring injury delayed the start of his 2025 season, but when he returned, his output was better his second go-around: a .331/.446/.493 line, albeit with more strikeouts (23.2%) than the prior season. He has a classic power-hitting catcher skill set, with above-average bat speed but below-average present ability on defense.

Rodriguez swings hard and has shown plus plate discipline so far as a pro, but he’s physically maxed out and unlikely to develop much more power, if any. Still, he need only get to the power he currently has in order to profile as a catcher. He’s geared to launch enough that this might be possible, but a byproduct of Rodriguez’s low-ball tendency is that he swings through a lot of stuff in the zone. Rodriguez’s defense is undercooked (he sometimes struggles just to receive pitches cleanly), but he only got to play 24 games there in 2025 because of his hamstring injury. He hasn’t progressed in ideal fashion for such a high-bonus signee, but he’s still an interesting enough developmental catching prospect thanks to his pop.

Rodriguez threw just 15.1 innings during his 2025 DSL debut but showed enough during that time to pique the Mets’ interest: He was their return in the Jeff McNeil trade with the A’s. Rodriguez is a nice developmental arm who looks like the kind of high schooler who’d get about $1 million in the draft. He has the prototypical 6-foot-3 frame and limber delivery of a big league starter, and good arm strength for his age. His fastball has nasty life at times but is hittable at others, and sharpening this will be a key to his development. Rodriguez’s natural breaking ball depth is outstanding, so much that automatic pitch tagging classifies some of we’re pretty sure are sliders as curveballs. He’ll likely have multiple breaking balls at maturity, but for now has this one offering in the 79-83 mph range that averages 2,650 rpm. This is the skill foundation of a lot of good young pitching prospects, except it’s tough to say whether Rodriguez can sustain it across a meaningful slate of innings.

Kussow, a Louisville commit in Wisconsin who signed for just shy of $900,000, is an XL-framed cold weather righty with plus slider projection. He was something of a spring pop-up arm, as his fastball velo climbed from the 87-90 mph range in 2024 into the 91-95 range in 2025. Kussow’s slider velo was also up, at times 87-88, more often 83-86. Its movement is currently characterized by tight, late break, and below-average length, but Kussow’s size and three-quarters arm slot add some extra depth to the pitch. Kussow didn’t pitch at an affiliate after the draft and enters 2026 as a sleeper prospect with a long developmental runway.

Lohman, who was signed away from a Missouri commitment for just shy of $800,000, has a prototypical (if rapidly maturing) pro starter’s frame and repeatable delivery. Loham throws fastball strikes of a better quality than is typical for a starter this size and age. He uses a vertical fastball/curveball attack with a backspinning, downhill fastball and a hook with 12-to-6 shape and above-average depth. The curveball lacks velo and power right now, in the 74-77 mph range. Lohman’s feel for changeup location is better than its raw quality of movement. He has a starter’s build and command ingredients, but teams were mixed on his athletic projection at draft time. He joins a few other rookie ball youngsters who’ll be prominent members of the Mets’ Florida complex contingent in 2026.

Chirinos has a lot of starter ingredients: a prototypical 6-foot-3 build, a balanced, lower-effort delivery (though his arm is often late), fair strike-throwing, and several viable secondary pitches. His slider has plus length and depth, and he tends to command it. It’s his best current pitch by a long shot, and Chirinos mixes and matches it with a harder cutter to his glove side. His arm-side offerings include a low-90s fastball that doesn’t move all that well, and a sinking changeup that has the makings of an average pitch. A cleaner, more punctual arm stroke might allow Chirinos to locate his fastball more precisely and get away with its lack of life. Though the 2026 season is Chirinos’ 40-man platform year, he’s probably more of a two-to-three year prospect who’ll be in the mix for a 40-man spot after 2027 and ultimately work in a sixth starter role.

Rincon slashed .314/.383/.438 in his third DSL season as clearly one of the toolsiest position player prospects on either of New York’s rosters down there. The angular 20-year-old (his birthday was in February) also has some of the best bat speed in the Mets’ rookie ball group. His swing is noisy and elaborate, with a multi-part set up that can impact Rincon’s timing, but he swings hard for his size and can mis-hit pitches with power to all fields. He runs well enough to continue to develop in center field and is a toolsy, late-blooming sleeper.

Recruited by Georgia Tech to play football but committed to Mississippi State for baseball, it took $2.75 million for the Mets to coax Houck to pro ball. In his first full season, he struggled badly at Low-A St. Lucie, where he struck out 36.3% of the time and hit .206. Tasked with repeating the level in 2025, he hit for power early in the year and cut his strikeouts enough (28.7%) to force a promotion to Brooklyn, where his strikeouts again spiked and he hit .198 during the second half. Houck is allergic to spin, and whiffs at roughly 50% of the breaking pitches he offers at, which nerfed his overall contact rate to 65% in 2025, down in Gabriel Arias territory. That’s the sort of player Houck projects to be. He’s still fairly projectable at 21 years old, he has roughly average raw power and should grow into more, and his pull-oriented approach allows him to get to power when he makes contact. Still, Houck probably can’t make enough of it to be a consequential player and is looking at a fringe 40-man future.

Orellana is a good athlete with a complicated, max-effort delivery. His motion has both drop-and-drive and rock-and-fire elements, and a deep wrist curl adds length to his arm stroke. Good hip/shoulder separation lets him use every ounce of his body to generate as much torque as possible, but in leveraging that ability, he also spins off the mound with a lot of head movement in a way that makes it tough for him to throw quality strikes. After running roughshod over Double-A hitters, Orellana walked nearly a batter per inning in Triple-A in 2025, as hitters essentially let him dig his own grave on pitches off the plate. The stuff itself is middle relief quality. He sits 93-96, a bit shy of average for a righty reliever but with natural cut and carry. He’ll throw a curve once in a while, but it’s the slider he leans on, a plus two-plane bender with late movement. It should miss enough bats to get Orellana to the big leagues, but he’ll need to throw strikes more consistently once he’s there to profile.

De La Cruz was sitting in the mid-90s as a starter in 2023 and 2024 and moved into the bullpen in the middle of 2025, as he bounced back and forth between Double- and Triple-A. Though he had a window last year when he was touching 98-99, his velocity was in the 94-95 mph range for most of last year, including during his Winter League stint in the Dominican Republic. De La Cruz’s slider improved throughout 2024 and has become his most-used pitch. It’s generating plus miss and chase even though De La Cruz is, sometimes predictably, using it to get strike one a lot of the time. He should break into the bigs as an up/down lefty, and then will need to sharpen his command to hold down a more consistent middle inning role.

Prescott was selected as a draft-eligible sophomore and signed for just under $200,000, well under slot. It’s a little unusual for someone with so much eligibility left to take a haircut like that, and even stranger given that the righty had saved his best work for the very end of the season. He had gotten off to a mediocre start, and finished the year with just fair numbers, but Prescott picked up a few ticks of velocity down the stretch. There was an amusing televised moment right at that crossroads, when the broadcast flashed his scouting report — “sits 92-96” — right before he went out and bumped 98-100. The heater comes with angle and rise that makes it a potential monster if he can hold the velo.

But Prescott isn’t just an arm strength flier. His split made some of Oregon State’s lefty hitters look silly in the Super Regionals, and he’s also flashed an average slider. The shape of what FSU had him working with doesn’t fit well with his arm slot, so there may yet be a path to an even better breaking ball. It’s entirely possible Brendan is reading too much into Prescott’s late-season outings and that he’s more of a low-to-mid leverage arm who needs a breaking ball. But it’s also possible that he puts a 70, 60, and 55 on the card; you would think that a bunch of teams would pay $200,000 to find out.

Alvarez spent two seasons in the DSL sandwiched around a year lost to injury. He came to the U.S. in 2024 and had a velo spike, which carried into 2025, a season he spent in the Low-A bullpen. Alvarez was 180 pounds when he signed (and is still officially listed as that), but he’s grown into a muscular and imposing 230 pounds or so, and with that added strength has come plus-plus velocity. He was scraping 100 mph at the very end of the season, though injury limited him to just 27 innings. Alvarez’s release point wanders all over the place, impacting his strike-throwing and the quality of his secondary stuff. He has a slower two-plane slurve and a harder gyro slider. The curveball is the better bat-misser, while the slider might give him the strike-getting offering he needs to avoid walking 14% of opponents again in 2026. Currently an A-ball bully with great stuff, Alvarez needs to harness it and pitch well in the upper levels of the minors across the next couple of seasons to put himself in play for a 40-man spot.

Acquired from Miami as part of the return for David Robertson at the 2023 trade deadline, Hernandez is a skills-oriented third catcher prospect with modest tools. Hernandez’s throwing feel and accuracy are fantastic, and make him a threat to hose runners even though he doesn’t have rocket arm strength. He starts to exit his crouch as the pitch is in flight, and can throw from weird positions if necessary. His ball blocking can be similarly impressive to the eye, but there’s incongruity here between our visual evaluation and what teams’ internal metrics say about how he performed as a ball blocker in 2025, which had him nearly 10 runs below average. There is agreement, however, about Hernandez’s framing and pitch presentation, which is currently below average.

Hernandez is a selective hitter who is usually on time to match fastballs from both sides of the dish, but slower breakers elude him. Vanilla bat speed from the left side limits his potential offensive impact to the occasional belt-high pull shot. A 40-hit/40-power combo on a switch-hitting catcher isn’t all that bad. None of Hernandez’s defensive issues are severe enough to move him out from behind the plate, and the things he needs to improve (framing, blocking) are common warts for catchers this age.

Ramirez is a quarter-stick of dynamite at a stocky 5-foot-9. He swings hard and generates incredible leverage for a hitter his size, but the long-term track record of squat position player prospects like this isn’t stellar. Ramirez has infield experience but, at best, looks like someone who you try to hide at second base; he’s more likely to find a permanent home in the outfield than he is to improve enough to play on the dirt. Because Wandy Asigen became available, the Mets had to acquire bonus pool space to sign Ramirez for an amount ($1.37 million) just shy of what Eric’s sources indicated he was going to sign for ($1.6 million) before the Asigen pivot.

Lantigua signed for just shy of $1 million in 2024 and slashed .263/.397/.395 in his DSL debut season, then hit .288/.433/.399 in the 2025 FCL. He has a well-rounded offensive skill set and a projectable frame. Lantigua isn’t a lanky 6-foot-3 or anything like that, but he has a near ideal baseball build at a square-shouldered 6-foot-1. His showcase tools are currently average or below (he runs in the 4.3s home-to-first), but he has feel for the zone and barrel. He buttons fastballs to all fields and crushes lefties. Lantigua doesn’t have a huge ceiling, but he could be a good part-time outfielder.

Acosta, who signed for just $50,000, was the youngest player on either of the Mets’ DSL rosters in 2025, a physical, lefty-hitting catcher with good bat speed and strength for his age. Acosta is a terrific lower body athlete with impressive bend and twitch, which gives him the mobility to develop as a catcher. His natural uppercut path makes him vulnerable to strikeouts, and his contact rate was just north of 60% last year. Acosta’s precocious power gives him some room to strike out without torpedoing his prospectdom. This is a good developmental catching prospect with exciting offensive potential, but if Acosta has another season with a contact rate this low, we’ll be worried.

Hall is a converted catcher who redshirted while he moved to the mound. He pitched just 29.1 innings total in two seasons at Division-II Central Missouri (they’re the Mules), in part because he was a reliever his first year and in part because Hall blew out after four starts in 2025. He had internal brace surgery in the late-February/early-March area and should be back at some point in the middle of 2026.

Hall is an exciting sleeper with great pure stuff. He sat 93-95 early in outings before backing into the low-90s with riding life and a pair of breaking balls spinning in excess of 2,700 rpm on average. He’s slight of build, but he’s tall, athletic, repeats a short arm action, and is so new to pitching that he’s likely just scratching the surface of his abilities. He’s one of the more fun sleeper arms in this system and should be a priority target for teams that might talk trade with the Mets at the deadline, because he’s one of the org’s higher-variance players.

A Canadian high schooler from the Toronto area, Ziegler was in a bind ahead of the 2021 draft because COVID-era travel restrictions were going to make it hard for him to be seen by scouts. He transferred to TNXL Academy, a baseball-focused “school” in Florida, for his pre-draft spring. The Mets made him their second-round pick and signed him for just over $900,000. Ziegler has shown big stuff (sitting 96, potential plus-plus breaking stuff) when he’s been healthy, but his pro career has been marred by injury. A 2022 IL stint due to biceps tendinitis, surgery to remove bone spurs ahead of the 2023 season, and then a 2024 Tommy John that cost him that season and the next have limited him to just seven innings since 2022. Ziegler is currently healthy and on the same schedule as the other Mets minor leaguers in camp. He’s averaging 95 mph during live BP as he gets underway and can still really spin the baseball. Though his command is probably rusted over due to inactivity, Ziegler has the stuff to move quickly as a reliever once he gets comfortable working out of the bullpen. He has the stuff to put himself on the postseason 40-man radar with a solid 2026.

Rodriguez’s 2021 was about as exciting as a 12.1-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. The 2022 season was going to be about Rodriguez holding the velocity across a larger innings count. Instead, he had Tommy John and missed the entire year. Rodriguez returned in the middle of the summer in 2023, but he blew out again and missed all of 2024 recovering. He returned the week before Eric wrote the Mets list last year and looked healthy, touching 97 and spinning his best breakers around 3,000 rpm, but then he was shut down yet again and put on the 60-day IL. When healthy, Rodriguez looks like he could be fast-tracked in relief and has a non-zero shot to be a late-inning arm. But it’s tough to value him more than this when he’s barely pitched for several years.