Photo by Ed Delany, MMN
No. 14 Junior Santos, RHP
B/T: R/R Age: 18 (8/16/2001)
Height: 6’8” Weight: 218
Acquired: Signed as an International Free Agent in 2017 from Dominican Republic
ETA: 2023 Previous Rank: 13
2019 Stats: 40.2 IP, 5.09 ERA, .277 AVG, 1.75 WHIP, 36 K, 5.57 FIP
At first glance, his stats do not warrant him being a top 15 prospect. But his frame, fastball, and a weak system has him here. Around this time last year, Santos was generating an enormous amount of buzz. He debuted in 2018 and was hitting 97 MPH on the gun with his fastball at age 17. The Mets challenged Santos with an aggressive assignment to Kingsport, where he was 3.7 years younger than the rest of the league.
Santos experienced some command issues in Kingsport and also saw his velocity dip a little. Baseball America said his fastball was in the 93-95 MPH range during the 2018 season but last season, he was at 89-93 per Fangraphs. Most 17 year olds have problems repeating their throwing motions and dips in velocity are not uncommon. The bar was set very high for him so it is important that we do not get too worried about his 2019 season.
He also throws a slider and changeup in addition to his fastball. Both need to be refined but they also do show flashes of being above average pitches going forward. Baseball America says he gets good spin on his slider and his changeup has “two-seam” action. The slider and changeup both have a shot at being average pitches per Fangraphs’ report on him. Surprisingly, he gets more velocity with his changeup than his slider.
The slider will likely be the key to his breakout. As he moves up the ladder, he will need more than one pitch to get hitters out. Fortunately for Santos and the Mets, they are very good at developing sliders on raw pitchers. With Phil Reagan returning to a roving pitch coordinator and the Mets making their coaching staffs more analytically savvy, I would bet that they try and get Santos to focus on his slider this upcoming season.
The Mets were pretty careful with Santos when it came to managing his workload. He worked only three innings a start for the most part. The Mets had done something similar with Simeon Woods Richardson after challenging him with an assignment to Columbia.
While Santos is huge, he is probably done growing. He grew two inches from 2017 to 2018 but not much since. He will likely fill out the frame a little bit more as he gets older. He has the type of frame that scouts drool over so the Mets will likely try to mold him to get bigger and that will in turn, help him to gain more consistent velocity.
Despite the up and down 2019 season, his long term outlook is still sky high. A lot of the issues he struggled with in 2019 can be chalked up to mechanical stuff. These are things that most pitchers get better with as they get older. Baseball America ranked him as the No. 12 prospect in the Appalachian League last season, with praise for his work ethic. An opposing manager told them “Everyone talks about his size and velocity, but his work ethic is A-plus.” He seems like someone who will pay very close attention to try and improve.
I expect that Santos will begin 2020 in Brooklyn. He is likely not ready for a promotion to Columbia yet and being in extended spring training will help him. He still needs his innings managed so that’s another reason why Brooklyn makes more sense than Columbia.
It would not surprise me at all if Santos is in the top 10 of this list next year. He is that talented and physically gifted. The Mets system has seemed to embrace analytics more so I have a lot of hope that they will try and get the most out of Santos.
Previous Rankings
16 Freddy Valdez – OF
19 Alexander Ramirez – OF
20 Ali Sanchez – C
