Another of the many recent pitching prospects who were squeezed out of the rotation at the University of Florida by the program’s terrific depth, Scott worked out of the Gators’ bullpen throughout his college career but has been stretched out as a starter in pro ball; he shifted to the rotation in 2022, then broke out in 2023 as he enjoyed a velo spike. Scott began the 2023 season on the IL with an oblique strain, but once he was healthy, he was on the expressway to Queens, climbing three levels across just 19 starts en route to a spot on the offseason Top 100. He debuted in the bigs not long before list publication.

Scott has a huge wingspan and gets way down the mound, traits that combine to give him huge extension and a shallow approach angle. His fastball really jumps on hitters, and he misses a ton of bats with it at the top of the zone even though it’s technically a sinker. He’s always had a pretty juicy slider, and he and the Mets have done well to demarcate his two breaking balls; Scott now has an upper-80s cutter and a slightly slower sweeper-style slider. Not only does he have two distinct breakers, but last year Scott seemed to have altered his changeup into a firmer split (its average velo increased by about five ticks, often 84-88 mph), giving him a very complete mix. Some of what Scott is doing mechanically is pretty violent (he has a nasty head whack), and you can see why he was ‘penned in the past, but he’s thrown a ton of strikes in pro ball (this is definitely a control over command guy) and has mostly proven he can sustain an impact fastball across a starter’s load of innings. From a craftsmanship standpoint, Scott is remarkably advanced for a guy who didn’t start in college. I had him projected for a 2025 debut during the offseason because of his 40-man timeline, but the Mets thought he was ready for prime time already. He projects as a mid-rotation starter.

Before the 2022 draft, Gilbert was written up here as a potential top-of-the-order catalyst who I thought was more likely to be a good fourth outfielder due to his modest power. So far in pro ball, Gilbert is performing more like a do-everything player with a balanced hit/power skill set and just enough center field defense to project there in the big leagues. He reached Double-A with Houston during the first half of 2023, then was traded to New York as part of the Justin Verlander deal and slashed a fantastic .325/.423/.561 during his post-trade time with Binghamton. He was assigned to Triple-A Syracuse at the start of the 2024 season but suffered a hamstring injury in early April. Anthony DiComo went into detail on the status Gilbert’s rehab for MLB.com, indicating a late May or early June timetable.

Gilbert has gotten stronger since signing (he was already yoked) and takes a mighty rip for a 5-foot-9 guy. He is a very dangerous low-ball hitter, capable of tracking and adjusting to breaking balls mid-flight. When Gilbert collapses his back side and leans on one, he’ll show you emphatic pull-side lift, and he does most of his extra-base damage by yanking doubles down the right field line. While Gilbert shows some other hitterish characteristics with the occasional oppo liner, he is less of a bat control master than he is a twitchy, short-levered hitter who is tough to beat because of how concise his swing is. His barrel is in the zone for a long time and he tends to find a way to put the ball in play, using his strength to muscle balls past infielders. He made what is roughly an average rate of contact for a starting big league center fielder in 2023, but he also hit the ball harder than expected. It’d be surprising if Gilbert hit 25-plus annual bombs, as pitchers can stay away from him and limit his power, but he’s going to ambush 18 or so and hit a ton of doubles, which is great for a capable center fielder.

A plus runner, Gilbert can go get it in center field and has a great arm. His range is fine, but his hands and ball skills aren’t the best, and there are some scouts who think he’ll be plus in a corner rather than stick in center. Gilbert plays with an edge, the kind of guy you love to have on your team but hate to play against, with his on-field persona toeing the line between “fiery” and “excessively abrasive.” He’s a spicy heel with the ability to be a well-rounded regular and he’s on pace to debut ahead of his stock 40-man timeline.

Williams added significant strength between his junior and senior years of high school, which is how he elevated his stock into the first round of the 2022 draft. He then dominated A-ball in his first full pro season before looking overmatched during a late 2023 and early 2024 cup of coffee at Double-A Binghamton. He was shut down with wrist soreness in late April and hasn’t played since. MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo had a status update on Williams a couple of weeks ago, indicating he may be good to go by the end of May. Williams posted walk rates near 20% at Low- and High-A; over 115 combined games, he hit 13 homers and stole 44 bases, forcing his way to the upper levels while still just 19 years old. A plus athlete and a 70 runner, he is a short-levered gap-to-gap hitter who has the catalytic qualities of a dangerous leadoff man.

It’s too soon to call him a do-everything, five-tool prospect, but Williams isn’t far off. He has a sizable hole in his swing at the top of the strike zone, which is atypical of a compact hitter like this. But his feel for the strike zone is excellent, his hitting hands are super explosive, and Jett can adjust to breaking balls by bending in his lower half in a way that is rare even for good hitters. I do think the belt-high hole in his swing is more likely to be exposed in a meaningful way now that he’s reached the upper minors, but the power and OBP combo here will still be enough for him to profile as an everyday player.

He also has more developing to do on defense. Williams is athletically capable of playing all three up-the-middle positions but he requires polish. In 2023, he played shortstop most of the time and got a start in center field about once a week. The reliability of his hands and arm strength are both on the fringe of what’s viable at short. Williams simply mishandles the baseball too much to be a good shortstop right now, and he doesn’t have a “from the hole” cannon. He is such a rangy, high-effort athlete that I consider him a “maybe” long-term defender there, and the makeup report on Williams indicates he’s going to work to improve in the areas he’s lacking, but young prospects whose defensive scouting reports read like his at the same age (the Roman Quinns and Billy Hamiltons of the world) tend to end up in center field. Even though Williams played once a week in center, whole games would pass without him seeing any action out there. His reads and routes aren’t yet comfortable, but his speed and ability to adjust when he has to flip his hips and change directions is incredible. While it might be more valuable for Williams to stay at short, I think his chances of becoming a special defender are greater if he and the Mets commit to center field. Early in 2024 they didn’t seem inclined to do that; he played just one game in center before he was shut down with the wrist issue. He projects as an impact up-the-middle player even though the specifics of the defense are still cloudy.

Acquired from Arizona in the Tommy Pham trade, Rodriguez’s skill set compares favorably to the high school infielders who tend to go in the first round of the domestic draft. He’s a skilled, well-rounded player with an unusually high floor for a teenage prospect thanks to his defense and bat-to-ball ability, the latter of which is heightened by his excellent plate discipline. I wrote Rodriguez up as a more of a utility guy when he was an amateur because he lacks the big-frame body projection typical of a star player, but now that he’s accumulated a DSL season’s worth of data, both his plate skills and contact ability are profile-driving attributes. We’re talking 86% contact, 93% in-zone contact, and only 19% chase. DSL metrics like this are only so meaningful, but put on Rodriguez’s tape and he looks like a really good hitter (he’s been awesome in a small 2024 sample). He tracks pitches with bird-of-prey precision and makes flush, high-quality contact with a lovely and effortless left-handed swing.

Rodriguez is also a good shortstop defender. His exchange on slow rollers in on the grass is sometimes clunky, but otherwise he can make the requisite shortstop plays, his hands and range are plus, and I think something closer to prototypical arm strength will arrive with physical maturity. This is not a monster-ceiling’d DSL prospect — Rodriguez is more in the Brayan Rocchio-ish, high-probability bucket. Once again, using recent draft prospects as a way to triangulate more correct list placement for DSL guys would slot Rodriguez behind the Marcelo Mayer and Jordan Lawlars of the world, and closer to the Colt Emerson/Jett Williams tier of player who often belong in the 10-15 range of a draft board.

Poor Ronny Mo tore his ACL while running the bases in a mid-December LIDOM game and will miss the entire 2024 season. With veterans Francisco Lindor and Jeff McNeil occupying the middle infield spots, Mauricio was likely going to battle Brett Baty and Mark Vientos for playing time at third base, which was his primary position with Licey before he was injured. The Mets began to play him all over the place in 2023 (including in left field) looking for pathways to playing time, as they were clogged at many positions and Mauricio was hitting well at Triple-A. He slashed .292/.346/.506 (a 108 wRC+, which gives you an idea of the run environment), and Mauricio had his third consecutive season with at least 20 homers, his second consecutive 20/20 campaign, and was fresh off winning the LIDOM MVP the winter before.

Mauricio 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 met expectations since his high-profile signing, he’s still an extremely volatile prospect. Because he’s gotten stronger and added huge power while remaining just agile enough to play shortstop, his chase issues are palatable. Mauricio has historically had chase rates near 40% and has a career .311 OBP in the minors. His secondary pitch recognition isn’t good, and he’s very vulnerable to soft stuff in the bottom of the zone and below. 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 viability in this respect, with in-zone contact rates of 83-85% the last few seasons, which is right around what successful chase-prone, low-OBP hitters like Ozzie Albies and Jonathan Schoop have shown.

Hopefully a year of relative inactivity doesn’t impact Mauricio’s defensive ability so much that he can’t play shortstop anymore, as his capability there is an important aspect of his profile. A typical slash line for Mauricio projects like juiced ball-era Freddy Galvis: a low OBP with 25-30 homers and plus infield defense.

There was a point after he began 2023 shot out of a cannon at Double-A Frisco following an electric 2022 Fall League stint when Luisangel looked like a potential everyday shortstop. After slashing .315/.377/.453 as a Rough Rider, Acuña was part of the Max Scherzer deal, but his surface performance has tanked since he’s joined the Mets and he’s struggling at Triple-A Syracuse so far in 2024. Even when Acuña has hit well in the past, he has had issues with chase and plate coverage. Instead, it was his remarkable bat speed, which generates surprising power for a hitter his size, that made Acuña a potential impact shortstop who lived toward the back of the Top 100 list. The way his body rotates about his hips as he swings is beautiful, and he has a certain verve and power potential that few 5-foot-8 hitters possess, but Acuña has only performed for fits and starts of the last couple of seasons.

Acuña’s hands on defense can be clumsy. He’s mostly played the middle infield, but prior to the trade, the Rangers also gave him some reps in center field and the Mets have continued to develop him there some of the time. He looks like a natural center field defender, with plus closing speed and ball skills. His ceiling as a defender there might be really high because he already looks so good despite having not played the position for very long. If he can be a plus center field defender and also play a mix of second and third base, we’re talking about a very versatile utility guy whose streaky offense would be more acceptable than if he were in an everyday role.

Tidwell has added a harder, 86-89 mph gyro slider this year to go with a sweeper and changeup that already rounded out a starter’s mix of pitches. His fastball lives in the low-to-mid-90s and has enough life to play as a bat-misser when he locates it to the up and arm-side locations where it plays best. Tidwell’s changeup has promising movement and velocity separation from his fastball, but he still doesn’t command it consistently. If you recall, Tidwell was a draft-eligible sophomore who missed time in college due to a shoulder ailment. He has pitched less than most prospects his age and I’ve tended to project late growth for his changeup based on his lack of reps and delivery/athleticism. I’m still inclined to do that despite the stagnation there. Tidwell’s delivery is a bit violent, he had the shoulder issue, and until early 2024, he has had middling control. There’s a little more relief risk here than the typical no. 4/5 starter profile, so I’ve rounded down on Tidwell’s grade a bit to account for that. On talent, he’s tracking to be a starter of medium impact who competes for a rotation spot in 2026.

Sproat was the Mets’ 2022 third rounder, but he didn’t sign, instead going back for a fourth year at Florida, where he exceeded 100 innings during the regular season; he was shut down after the Mets drafted him again. A noisy, cross-bodied delivery has long driven big league relief projection for Sproat, and he’d probably move quickly if ‘penned proactively, but he also held premium velocity as a starter for his entire career at Florida and has a deep repertoire that has expanded since he joined the Mets.

Sproat tends to sit 94-98 mph, and his sinking, upper-80s changeup is easily plus. He has reshaped his breaking ball as a pro and is now throwing a sweeper-shaped slider in the 82-85 mph range. He’s not using it a ton as of yet, but it has the potential to be a separator for him. Slider consistency was Sproat’s biggest issue at Florida and it looks as though the Mets have helped him make an adjustment there. They’ve also altered his arm slot. Sproat was a cross-bodied, lower-slot guy in college, but he’s a little less cross-bodied now and is throwing from more of a three-quarters slot, giving his fastball rise/run shape rather than the sink/tail of his college days. He’s not yet comfortable locating his fastball to the parts of the zone where its new movement plays best, but this should theoretically help it miss more bats than his college version did. These attributes are still new enough that even though Sproat was already promoted to Double-A, I wouldn’t consider him on the fast track to the bigs until the dust settles on some of these tweaks. He’s given himself a better chance to start long-term and we could be talking about a Top 100 prospect next offseason if Sproat performs well at Binghamton for the rest of 2024.

A $275,000 signee from 2022, Baez is an exciting left-side-of-the-infield prospect with remarkable arm strength and bat speed for a hitter his size. He rotates with ferocity in the box and can hose you from deep in the hole at shortstop or third base. Currently at Low-A St. Lucie, Baez’s strikeout rates have trended in a better direction as he’s climbed from rookie ball thanks to the combination of his good-but-not-great barrel feel and his short levers, which enable him to have a fairly noisy and aggressive swing without it actually being too long. He has all-fields power that is currently of the doubles variety. Baez isn’t especially projectable, but his explosivity is exciting and he should have above-average raw power at peak. Whether he gets to all of it is going to be dictated by whether he can become more selective. Baez is incredibly chase prone, but he has been talented enough to perform on offense so far despite this. His toolset is similar to Miguel Andujar’s except with better third base defense — you can see how that’s exciting but also why it might cause you to be standoffish about forecasting Baez as a slam dunk everyday big leaguer even though his physical tools are indicative of that.

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 to keep him from heading to Vanderbilt, and after he struggled with whiffs in his post-draft summer, he lit Low-A on fire to start 2023 and was acquired from Houston as part of the Justin Verlander trade. Some of Clifford’s TrackMan data from the early portion of last season was so absurd that he merited consideration as a possible Top 100 prospect. His high-end exit velos were near the top of the scale and his contact rates were suddenly above-average. The sample wasn’t big enough to consider Clifford’s leap in bat-to-ball ability legitimate, and indeed after he was promoted out of Low-A, his strikeout rates spiked and have lived in a scary area ever since. Last list cycle, I cautioned readers against weighing his exit velo data too heavily, but even I didn’t foresee him striking out as much as he has so far in 2024, when his whiffs have far outpaced his balls in play.

The visual evaluation of Clifford as a hitter is one of passivity and a bottom-hand dominant swing that tends to be underneath fastballs in the upper half of the zone. Clifford 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 whose move forward is balanced but explosive. But Clifford is hitting just shy of .160 against fastballs as of list publication, and unless he makes some kind of adjustment he’s only ever going to be able to hit low-ball mistakes. Written up as a Lucas Duda type of platoon bat during his last scouting update, Clifford is not only trending down, he’s on increasingly thin ice, especially without a good defensive component to his profile.

McLean was a two-way college player and Baltimore’s unsigned third rounder from 2022; the Mets scooped him up for just shy of $750,000 in the 2023 third round. Though he has continued hitting early in 2024, McLean has only ever realistically been a big league prospect as a pitcher, and this year he’s taken a leap in that regard. McLean looks like a power reliever who might have three plus pitches at peak. You have to project on his secondary pitch consistency to get there, but he hasn’t focused solely on pitching yet, so you can. This is a very explosive low-to-the-ground athlete who creates big hip and shoulder separation during his delivery. It’s a delivery typical of a big league power reliever with a mid-90s fastball already in tow. McLean showed three different breaking balls in college and still has at least two (a slider and cutter), as well as a tertiary changeup. A scout source who caught McLean the week before publication thought he had a shot to develop three plus pitches. His secondary stuff is wildly inconsistent on tape, but it flashes plus, especially the slider. Don’t worry about McLean being a little older than most developmental prospects. Because he was just drafted, he has as much time as any other college prospect to improve under the Mets org umbrella and is on a post-2026 season 40-man timeline. McLean has three whole seasons to polish his control and refine a secondary pitch in order to profile as a middle reliever, which feels like his floor. All of the late bloomer and athletic traits indicate he has more ceiling than that.

Baro was a standout at the 2023 MLB Draft Combine and ended up getting $700,00 rather than head to UCLA. He has rare physical projection for a medium-bonus high schooler, let alone one who hits left-handed. Baro is a heady and athletic third base defender with uncommon range and bend for such a tall guy. Especially if he ends up with a bit more arm strength as he fills out, he projects to be a special hot corner glove. On offense, Baro shows an ability to track pitches and use the whole field. His hands are sometimes a little late to fire, but as he gets stronger, he should be able to shorten up and accelerate them more readily. He has a very exciting skill foundation with lots and lots of physical projection remaining. He was given a somewhat aggressive assignment to Low-A St. Lucie and is off to a great start there. He looks like a potential everyday third baseman, though it will likely take a while.

A converted catcher, Vargas has been one of the better pure hitters in rookie-level baseball the last couple of years amid a trade from Miami to New York for David Robertson. He hasn’t posted a K% above 16% at any level and has a career OBP well over .400 so far. Vargas tracks pitches well, his hands are quick and short to the ball, and his swing has natural lift but isn’t especially long because Vargas is so compact. There isn’t huge bat speed or physical projection here, so Vargas’ chances of becoming an impact player will need to come from him developing superlative bat-to-ball ability, but if his early-career performance is any indication, that outcome is in play for him. Vargas has played defense all over the infield, but his best fit is at second base. He profiles as a César Hernández type at the keystone.

Rodriguez, who signed for nearly $3 million in January, has a classic power-hitting catcher skill set in a scaled-down Gary Sánchez mold. Built to withstand the rigors of a full season of catching, the broad-shouldered Rodriguez has big pull power and arm strength. He has been participating in DSL activity, and along with bounce-back candidate Daiverson Gutierrez, will be part of the high-profile catching contingent down there.

Aracena is a high-effort teenage righty who has had a huge velo boost entering 2024. In the early portion of the FCL season, he has been sitting 94-98 and touching 99 for as many as three innings at a time, which constitutes a five- or six-tick bump from 2023, when Aracena was spending his third year in the DSL. The movement of Aracena’s fastball is all over the place. It tends to have natural cut, but it also flashes big tail. His delivery and level of athleticism aren’t anywhere near this, but the same was true of complex-era Camilo Doval and Emmanuel Clase. Aracena and the Mets will need to polish and develop his fastball movement to lean into either the cut or tail, as the shape of the pitch as its currently constituted will cause it to play below its velocity. He appears poised to be developed as a starter, which makes sense given that you want him to work on these things. Still, based on his delivery and strike-throwing track record, Aracena is likely a reliever. Purely from a trade value standpoint, he probably belongs a bit lower on this list, as teenage pitchers carry risk and this one is still quite a way from the big leagues. But even if you consider him a likely reliever, as I do, he has the potential for a ghoulish cutter/slider combo (his slider touches 87 and has 2800 rpm or so on average) that plays in the late innings.

Buttó was just a couple of roster days and innings away from losing rookie status entering 2024, and was written up as a fifth starter during the offseason here at FanGraphs. He was up and down several times in 2023, made seven solid big league starts, and looked like the fifth starter he’s been projected as for the last couple of list cycles. He has a fastball-heavy approach and inelegantly bullies hitters with 92-95 mph fastballs that serve to set up his excellent mid-80s changeup and curt, upper-80s slider, both of which miss bats at an above-average rate. Buttó was throwing more strikes in the low minors but adopted more of a power pitcher’s approach with his fastball a couple of season ago, and now tries to attack hitters at the top of the strike zone. He can beat hitters who struggle with that location, but his fastball doesn’t have quite enough carry to play as a bat-misser in the meatier parts of the strike zone. He might be better served throwing more secondary pitches. He’s a backend/spot starter who may trend toward a long relief role as he runs out of option years.

Hamel is a five-pitch righty with an inefficient style of pitching that will probably relegate him to the bullpen on a competitive roster. Hamel’s bread and butter pitch is his mid-90s fastball, which has plus vertical riding life and misses bats at the letters. After that, Hamel mixes in three different breaking balls that are spread across a 17-mph gap. His slow, mid-70s curveball was once his best secondary pitch, but as he’s progressed in pro ball, a mid-80s sweeper and upper-80s cutter have surpassed it in usage. Hamel’s cutter is the newest of these and his inexperience with the pitch shows in his lack of feel. The near-perfect vertical shape of his curveball should give Hamel enough of a weapon against lefties for him to play a multi-inning role.

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 91-95 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. It took just a quarter of a million to keep him from a North Dakota State commitment.

After he barely pitched in 2023, Tong started 2024 with a dominant stretch and was quickly promoted to High-A. He’s throwing a bit harder this year, touching 96 and sitting 92-95 after he averaged 92 mph in 2023. Tong’s fastball has plus-plus vertical ride and pure north/south shape with the tiniest bit of cut. It’s an impact fastball that is going to miss bats at the top of the zone. The rest of Tong’s repertoire is still in flux. He used a slow curveball as his primary offspeed weapon until this year when he’s incorporated a slider, which is still very much a work in progress. It can be tough to turn over a changeup from Tong’s vertical arm slot, so it’s pretty important for that slider to progress. This is definitely an arrow-up prospect in the Mets system but you still have to project quite a bit to see the components of a big league starter here, and the frail-looking Tong needs to show he can sustain this level of velocity across a starter’s load of innings. At this juncture, his best role looks like more of a long reliever, as it would give Tong a better chance to sustain this arm strength and lean heavily on his lone impact pitch once through the order.

A late-round Division II success story, Walker rocketed through the minors in 2021, pitched at Triple-A during parts of the next few years and debuted in Flushing in 2023 before an oblique strain sent him to the 60-day IL. He’s been back and forth from Syracuse to Citi Field a few times in 2024. A lefty with a great frame, Walker has a stiff overhand delivery that generates depth on a good curveball despite it lacking much spin. It’s a nasty enough pitch to play as a backfoot weapon against righties, as well as in a left-on-left capacity. He’s also had a little velo uptick in the early going of 2024, and his ability to consistently locate his heater to the top of the zone has helped it garner a chase rate north of 40% this year. He looks like a stable middle reliever.

A speedy, undersized catcher, Suero hit well enough at Low-A St. Lucie early in 2024 to earn a quick promotion to Brooklyn. He has simple in-the-box footwork and a short, low-hand load, the combination of which allows Suero to be on time consistently. His swing is a little uphill and he can’t always get on top of high pitches, but the hit/power combo here is enough to project Suero as a well-rounded backup. Suero is a Bronx native who played at All Hallows High School and for travel ball teams in the U.S. before he relocated in the spring of 2019 to sign as an international amateur. He hasn’t been catching for very long and is athletic enough to perhaps transition back to one of his former defensive positions and have rare versatility.

Signed for just shy of $2 million in 2023 and viewed as perhaps the best defensive catching prospect in that international amateur class, Gutierrez had a rough 2023 in the DSL and is back there again to start 2024. He’s at his best when his approach is more conservative and geared for hard line drives, which is how it has looked during DSL tuneup activity. He’s still more likely to be a backup than a primary catcher, but things do look better than they did during Daiverson’s debut.

Houck seemed like a high-upside developmental project as a high schooler, but he not only looks overmatched in pro ball, his twitch and overall athleticism have backed up. He’s been adept at getting on top of high pitches, but he’s struggling badly to pick up spin. I had him evaluated as a late first rounder prior to the draft and am surprised at how bad things look in the early going of 2024. Houck’s defense (he’s playing a mix of mostly shortstop and third base) has been fair. He makes some acrobatic plays but doesn’t have huge range or arm strength. I’ve kept him alive at shortstop here, which is largely why he’s on the list at all, but even though I tend to take a Bayesian approach to grading these guys where I weigh my prior evals into my current ones (especially when a guy is struggling like this), Houck looks so lost right now that I felt less inclined to do so here.

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 an average hit and power tool. 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/build, 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. He hit his way from Port St. Lucie to Brooklyn in 2023 but hasn’t laced ’em up yet in 2024 due to a hamstring strain, for which he’s on the 60-day IL as of list publication.

McLoughlin was part of the Fairfield squad that made beat Arizona State en route to a Regional finals loss to Texas in 2021. In part due to shoulder bursitis, McLoughlin didn’t pitch a ton during his third and fourth years at Fairfield. He’s been healthy and productive as a pro reliever, climbing all the way to Binghamton and the Arizona Fall League in 2023. He’s back at Binghamton to start 2024. McLoughlin has three big league-quality pitches. His fastball only sits 90-92, but it lives off of deception and McLoughlin’s ability to locate it up and to his arm side with consistency. He has a nasty splitter that looks like his fastball out of hand before dropping off the table, and McLoughlin commands his slider to his glove side and can land it in the top of the zone in sequence with his heater. All the pieces of McLoughlin’s repertoire fit together, his command makes each of his pitches sing, and he mixes them evenly enough to keep hitters guessing. He’s a high-probability low-leverage reliever.

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. Ziegler has shown big 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 an early 2024 Tommy John force a relief projection here, no matter how good Ziegler’s stuff is. Ziegler was throwing harder and had reshaped his repertoire when he was healthy this season. Built like David Bednar, Ziegler was sitting 96 pre-injury and bending in two different breaking balls rather than his splitter from the past. His delivery is violent and effortful, and Ziegler hasn’t been able to stay healthy as a starter. He’s a priority eval for opposing teams when he’s back later in 2025 because it’s Ziegler’s 40-man roster platform year; he’ll be eligible for the Rule 5 Draft after that season and could conceivably stick on a roster if healthy.

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, where he regressed, and he was sitting 91 throughout his draft year. Like a lot of pitchers who leave Virginia, Vasil had a rebound in pro ball and was back to sitting 92-95 for the last couple of seasons. His velocity has been trending down a bit so far in 2024, and Vasil has been knocked around at Syracuse. His skinny walk rate with Binghamton the first half of last year looks like the anomaly among elevated rates at other affiliates as he’s backed up in that regard, too. None of his pitches is generating a miss rate above 20% as of list publication. Vasil still has pretty good feel for location and four distinct pitches. At peak it looked like he’d compete for a rotation spot on a good team, but right now he looks more like a spot starter.

Stuart is a strike-throwing behemoth who has kept his walk rates down in the 2.5 per 9 IP range since entering pro ball. He’s now accumulated 14 efficient Double-A starts and is marching toward a post-2025 40-man add. Stuart’s stuff isn’t dominant and he probably needs to find a better changeup or split to avoid an eventual bulk relief role, but his durability and command give him a really high floor. He is mostly going to live in the low 90s with both a two- and four-seamer while commanding an average slider to his glove side. His ability to vary his fastball shape helps keep him off the barrel and is a big reason why he’s run groundball rates around 50%. He’s a low-variance sixth starter type.

A rather projectable righty who was barely 21 years old on draft day, Morris’ four pitch mix gives him a long-term shot to start despite the way his performance trended in college, ending with a 5.42 ERA in his draft year. Morris will bump 96 from a low-ish slot, and he can still manipulate the shape of two average breaking balls (his curveball has plus spin) and create tailing action on his changeup. It’s an east/west operation with a little less release consistency than is ideal for a starter prospect. Morris had a hot start at Low-A (as a third round college arm should) and was quickly promoted to Brooklyn early in 2024.

Lara had something of a breakout 2023 when he hit 14 homers with St. Lucie. He’s struggling pretty badly out of the gate with Brooklyn in 2024, but he’s only 20, he’s looked better to the eye then he has performed on paper, and the last couple of weeks it looks like he’s starting to adjust to the pitching quality at his new level. Lara’s carrying attribute is his defensive versatility. He can play basically any position, though as of publication, the Mets haven’t given him 2024 run in center field like they did last year. Lara also has uncommonly strong hands for a hitter his age and can create modest but meaningful power in a short mechanical distance. He has a chance to be a power-over-hit utility guy.

Ramírez hit .240/.316/.354 in 174 High-A games across 2022 and 2023, but was still promoted to Binghamton to start 2024. He’s off to a better start there, but his issues (a noisy swing that takes a long time to wind up and produce his otherwise impressive bat speed) remain, and he’s struggling to elevate and pull fastballs. He’s still just the age of a college draft prospect and Ramírez has some physical abilities that merit keeping him alive as a prospect for a while longer, but the time when we could expect that he’d be a meaningful part of the Mets’ future has passed. He needs to develop as a center field defender to give himself the best chance of playing a major league role.

I had Ewing evaluated as a $700k-ish draft prospect last year and he got just shy of that from the Mets rather than go to Alabama. Ewing is a medium-framed hitter with above-average bat speed and modest physical projection. I had him projected to second base when he was an amateur, but he’s also playing a lot of center field so far in pro ball. Though he has a hitterish look, Ewing’s amateur ball-in-play-to-whiff ratio was pretty mediocre and he might end up with a power-driven profile. He could be a part-time up-the-middle hitter.

Lantigua is a slower-twitch corner outfield prospect with substantial frame-based power projection. The Mets signed him for just shy of $1 million in January 2024 and he’s been participating in preseason DSL activity, where he looks as advertised. Lantigua is an open-striding hitter with natural feel for pull-side loft, but he can get extended and cover the outer half. He needs to get stronger, but he has a pretty interesting offensive foundation and is a good developmental outfield prospect.

Núñez was the Giants’ 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 across the last couple of seasons. Núñez’s stuff is buck nasty, but he has such poor feel for location that it took him until 2024 to debut. It has sometimes been tough to get a real grip on what’s happening with Núñez’s repertoire, which has changed many times since he popped onto the prospect radar. He has settled into a two-pitch mix (mostly) that’s spearheaded by a mid-90s fastball with some natural cut and a plus-flashing mid-80s slider. Núñez is off to a hot start to 2024, but his command has never allowed for more than up/down projection here.

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. But he’s getting a ridiculous number of groundballs and limiting opponents’ quality of contact, and he’s kept alive here as an up/down “look” reliever of note.

Acquired from Miami as part of the return for David Robertson at the 2023 trade deadline, Hernandez is a slightly undersized switch-hitting catcher with a well-rounded skill set and no plus tool. His bat-to-ball skills, which are quite good for such a young switch-hitter, and plate discipline are what carry all the weight of his offensive profile, as Hernandez isn’t especially projectable or athletic and likely won’t grow into huge power. On defense, Hernandez is fine behind the plate as a receiver and thrower, though a scout source with St. Lucie coverage thought he had regressed. He’s a developmental backup prospect.

Banks was a redshirt junior draftee who was at Wake Tech and Catawba before UNC Wilmington. His velo peaked during the 2023 college postseason, when Banks was 96-99 mph at Regionals. So far in 2024, he’s been more in the 94-96 mph range with a little bit of natural cut. He’s a strapping 6-foot-3 righty with a shot to be a pretty standard middle reliever if the Mets can improve one of his secondary pitches.

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 Díaz was suddenly sitting 93-95. He had a mixed season from a surface performance standpoint but was still a well-built teenager with two promising pitches. He needed Tommy John in March of 2023 and has now made a couple of rehab starts in 2024. Díaz’s velocity is back. He’s been in the 93-95 range once again in two- and three-inning outings, and he’s now throwing a harder breaking ball, a gyro-style slider in the 83-85 mph range. He’s healthy and back on the radar as a fairly young (likely) relief prospect, though it appears he’ll continue to be developed as a starter.

Alvarez has spent two seasons in the DSL sandwiched around a year lost to injury. He’s showing a big increase in velocity during 2024 preseason DSL activity, sitting 94-96 and touching 98 across a couple of innings at a time. Alvarez’s delivery is a dead ringer for Paul Skenes‘ except without any of the feel for location. He’s a strapping 6-foot-5 lad with big arm speed and some ability to spin a breaking ball, but without any location consistency. He’s a frame projection and arm strength dev project to monitor at the bottom of New York’s system.

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. 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 season. Rodriguez returned in the middle of the summer of 2023 and was back in the 93-96 mph range with his fastball, but he blew out again and is on the 2024 full-season injured list recovering from another elbow surgery. We have to wait for Rodriguez to be healthy again before we can chart his prospect course with any kind of accuracy. He’s a name to keep alive in this area of the list if only so we remember that this guy exists and needs to be checked on when he next pitches.

After he pitched well in relief in 2022, 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 he needed Tommy John and he has yet to pitch at an affiliate in 2024. When healthy, Gomez sits 94-96 mph and peaks at 99 out of the 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 throws have encouraging vertical drop, enough that Gomez looks like a potential three-pitch prospect who had a shot to start on paper. But his feel for throwing strikes, especially quality fastball strikes, is not anywhere close to where it would need to be for Gomez to start. He could be a really nasty reliever, a role that was made more likely by his injury.

Montes de Oca was slated to undergo surgery to remove bone spurs from his elbow last 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 (unpleasant surprise) Montes de Oca also needed a Tommy John. He was among pro baseball’s hardest throwers in 2022, with the emphasis on “thrower” in this case, because he also has one of its most violent deliveries and he’s walked at least 15% of opposing hitters since entering pro ball. 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 in 2022. He has a shot to be on the up/down bullpen shuttle back and forth from Syracuse if he returns with his pre-surgery stuff this year. He is still on the 60-day IL as of list publication.

Lavender struck out 86 hitters in 54.1 IP last year and has a career K/9 of 13.7 even though his fastball, which he throws 65% of the time, sits just 91 mph. That’s because Lavender has one of the more deceptive deliveries in the minors. He almost looks like someone who learned to throw with their left arm later in life. There are some Hideki Okajima elements to his delivery, including Lavender’s head whack, which prevents him from seeing his target at release. He gets way down the mound, his arm action is super whippy, and the line on his fastball is incredibly difficult for hitters to get on top of. The rest of his repertoire isn’t great, but on the back of his fastball alone Lavender smells like an up/down reliever. He had the internal brace style of Tommy John early in 2024 and will be on the shelf for a year.