The young arms of the Mets were the talk of the baseball world in August. While the Metropolitans slightly disappointed, posting an 11-17 record in the last month of the summer, there is reason to believe.
Nolan McLean has continued to impress with his deep bag of pitches and incredibly high spin rates while Jonah Tong, who had 2 starts for triple A affiliate Syracuse Mets, debuted against the Miami Marlins on August 29th and was fantastic. Miami scored four runs but only one run was earned, while Tong also struck out 6 and no walks.
Tong received 19 runs of support from the offense, something that few pitchers get, certainly something that no pitcher has received from the Mets. With the infusion of youth propelling the Mets to wins and a newly crowned #1 farm system in baseball, many are asking; “who’s next”.
There was a time where some could not imagine the Mets having highly touted pitching prospects, even saying the system was devoid of any pitching talent as recently as 2024.
The reality is, the Mets are close to calling up a third starting pitching prospect this year with the hopes he will make big starts as each game becomes more important.
With Kodai Senga seemingly losing command on his pitches and Carlos Mendoza seemingly being non committal on Senga’s next start, the manager did say it's their job to “get him right”. Instead of another start for Senga, there are some calls for Brandon Sproat to make a start for the Mets.
In his last inning for the Syracuse Mets, Sproat recorded nine strikeouts, allowed zero while pitching 7 innings. When veteran starters are unable to go past 5 innings of pitching, an issue that has plagued Sean Manea and Kodai Senga, front offices are forced to make moves.
Sproat, the third of the Mets pitching prospect 3 headed hydra, pitches primarily with a fastball that sits at 98mph and a changeup and slider that accompany it according to Baseball Savant. While he is highly regarded for the velocity on his fastball, there are control issues which have resulted in 53 walks so far during the 2025 MiLB season. However, Sproat has shown that he can minimize the impact of lefty hitters with his changeup while also generating high whiff rates with his sweeping slider.
With the Mets pitching woes being multifaceted, there have been times where the Mets have varied their usage of Sproat. Unfortunately, in his long relief stint, Sproat allowed seven earned runs over 3 2/3rds innings. That is probably to note for the Mets that Sproat is a starting pitcher.
With the early success of Jonah Tong and Nolan McLane for the Mets, the infusion of youth could be what catapults the Mets back to the NLCS and possibly further. With a sweep of Philadelphia behind them and an upcoming road trip to Cincinnati, the latter of whom are 4 games behind the Mets for the last wildcard spot, the Mets are hoping to get help from their sprouting farm system.
