While Nolan McLean, Jonah Tong, and Brandon Sproat emerged on the scene for the Mets in 2025, there is another wave of pitching prospects on the horizon.
When Nolan McLean, Brandon Sproat, and Jonah Tong made their major league debuts and became potential factors if the Mets made the postseason, that was a big step for the burgeoning Mets pitching development system.
Rebuilding a minor league system and a program is something that takes time and investment in both personnel and technology. After Steve Cohen bought the Mets, that investment grew exponentially. The “pitching lab” has been the center of discussions at times, but that is just a physical building in Port St. Lucie. That building means little if you don’t have the right technology in it or the right coaches/instructors to help groom these young pitchers, or most importantly, pitchers who buy into it.
The Mets hired Eric Jagers before the 2023 season to be their director of pitching development. In three seasons since that, Jagers has been promoted to the role of Vice President of Pitching and assembled a strong support staff under him that has led to the Mets recently being ranked as the No. 1 farm system for pitching prospects in all of baseball by MLB Pipeline.
Part of that is the fact that McLean, Tong, and Sproat are big player development wins as third, seventh, and second-round picks, respectively. They all have emerged to be not just among the best pitching prospects in the sport, but they are real options to count on as a part of the 2026 starting rotation.
McLean, specifically, may be one of the early favorites to win Rookie of the Year in the National League in 2026. While all three of McLean, Tong, and Sproat may not make the Opening Day rotation, as the Mets showed in 2025, a lot of pitchers are needed to get through the marathon that is a 162-game major league season.
A No. 1 ranking doesn’t come just because of three pitchers. As I wrote last week, the sign of a functioning player development system is avoiding multi-year gaps in generating young talent for the big-league roster. At some point in 2026, McLean, Tong, and Sproat are going to graduate as prospects.
The question is: Who’s next?
As it currently stands, the Mets don’t have a pitching prospect that could currently rival any of the above three’s prospect status. However, there are several arms in the upper minors with big-league potential that could impact the Mets as soon as 2026.
On the reliever front, there are two notable right-handed fireballers that should get an opportunity to play meaningful roles at some point in 2026: No. 19 ranked prospect Dylan Ross and No. 21 ranked prospect Ryan Lambert.
The 25-year-old Ross, who was added to the Mets’ active roster at the end of September, should be competing for a spot in the bullpen in spring training. The former 13th-round pick posted a 2.17 ERA in 54 innings across three levels in his first full professional season in 2025. He spent the most time with Triple-A Syracuse, where he had a 1.69 ERA in 32 innings with 39 strikeouts.
Ross mostly throws three pitches. The first is a four-seam fastball that averaged 97 mph and touched 100. That isn’t even his best pitch, though, as that honor would go to his splitter, which he throws in the low 90s and which generated a 48.3 percent whiff rate. He also throws a high-80s slider. Ross will have to rein in his control, as he had an unsustainable 17.3 percent walk rate in Triple-A, but with some tweaks and, frankly, more reps, as he has had Tommy John surgery twice, Ross could be an impactful part of the Mets bullpen.
The 23-year-old Lambert posted a 1.62 ERA in 50 innings, allowing only 31 hits and striking out 81 between High-A and Double-A. The former eighth-round pick is more of the prototypical two-pitch fastball-slider reliever. His fastball is at least a plus offering that will sit 96–97 and touch 100, averaging 20 inches of induced vertical break and nearly 2,700 rpm. His slider is an above-average offering in the mid-to-high 80s. Lambert also needs to improve his walk rate, but I would expect him to start next season in Triple-A and earn a call-up.
On the starting pitching front, most of the Eastern League Champion Double-A Binghamton Rumble Ponies rotation are ranked among SNY’s top 30 prospects in the Mets system and look like future big leaguers.
Those names are No. 10 prospect Jonathan Santucci, No. 11 prospect Jack Wenninger, No. 14 prospect Will Watson, and No. 24 prospect Zach Thornton. It may be a numbers game to determine which of these will start in Triple-A, but we should not forget both McLean and Tong started 2025 in Double-A.
Santucci, a second-round pick in 2024, struggled in his first six professional starts, posting an 8.14 ERA in 21 innings. In the 20 starts after that, he was one of the best performers in the Mets system, with a 1.95 ERA in 101.1 innings. In that stretch, he struck out 120, and opposing hitters only hit .186 with a .505 OPS against him.
He has a three-pitch mix with a fastball that sits 93–95 and will touch 97 mph. His 83–85 mph slider was a swing-and-miss pitch for him, and further development of his changeup will be key for him to remain a starter long-term.
Wenninger, a sixth-round pick in 2023, really impressed Mets brass in 2025. He spent the whole season with Binghamton where he posted a 2.92 ERA in 135.2 innings and ranked second in the Eastern League in strikeouts with 147.
He has a full starter’s repertoire with five pitches and his stuff ticked up in 2025. His fastball was touching 97 mph, even late into starts. His split-change is his best secondary swing-and-miss offering, and he also mixes in a two-seam fastball, curveball, and slider. He looks the part of a higher-floor back-end starter that I would anticipate starting 2026 in Triple-A.
Watson, a seventh-round pick in 2024, split time as a starter and a reliever while at college at USC. 2025 was his first year as a full-time starter, and he emerged as a non–top-30 prospect preseason to inside the top 15 by August. In 121.1 innings, he allowed only 88 hits and struck out 142.
He reaped benefits from the Mets’ pitching development staff, as his velocity increased across the board from his time in college. His fastball sat at 95 and would reach 97 mph. He also throws a slider and changeup and has worked on a cutter and sinker/two-seam fastball. His command at times was below average, but Mets people are excited about a second year of Watson, and he could take another step forward. I would expect him to repeat Double-A to start 2026.
Thornton may have made it to Triple-A during the 2025 season had he not injured his oblique at the end of June, which wiped out the remainder of his season. In the 72.2 innings he did pitch, the former fifth-round pick posted a 1.98 ERA with 78 strikeouts and only 11 walks.
He is the best strike-thrower in not just the organization, but all of minor league baseball. Among pitchers that threw at least 70 innings, he led all of minor league baseball in WHIP (0.81) and was second in walks per nine (1.36). Thornton is not a hard thrower, as he will top out at 94 mph on his fastball, but he controls a four-pitch mix that also includes a slider, curveball, and changeup.
A few other names currently outside the top 30 that are worth keeping an eye on: R.J. Gordon, Saul Garcia and Brendan Girton.
One of the consistent trends here: none of the names I mentioned were first-round picks, and all but Sproat and Santucci were outside of the top two rounds. That is a credit to the amateur scouting department identifying the talent, as well as the pitching development department helping maximize the pitchers in the organization.
While McLean, Tong, and Sproat emerged on the scene in 2025, there is another wave coming. And if the Mets can continue their development plan, there’ll be another wave after that.
Category: General Sports
