As the Mets wind down spring training, baseball will stick around at Clover Park and begin at all other home locations for the Mets minor league teams. The Mets will run out their four full season minor league teams this year, the Triple-A Syracuse Mets, Double-A Binghamton Rumble Ponies, High-A Brooklyn Cyclones, and the Low-A St. Lucie Mets. The Mets will have top prospects spread out throughout all four teams, including consensus top-100 names like Ronny Mauricio, Brett Baty, Mark Vientos, and top-prospect Francisco Álvarez.

Syracuse begins their season on Tuesday at 6:35 PM, and then the other three fill season affiliates get kicked off on Friday. The FCL and DSL Mets will start this summer.

There will be a lot to watch this season down on the Farm, so let’s dive right in.

What To Watch For

A few Mets prospects took big steps forward last season, including Álvarez and Baty, who are slated to be in the heart of the Binghamton Mets’ lineup going into 2022. The pair are the Mets’ consensus top prospects, with Álvarez pushing universal Top-1o status and Baty going from missing on most lists before 2021 to being ranked as high as No. 13 by Baseball Prospectus heading into 2022.

However, both players have a kink or two that they are said to need to work through before reaching the next level. For Baty, the major knock is his ground-ball rate. In his two stops last year, the lefty posted a ground ball rate of 51.6% in Brooklyn and 61.2% in his short stint in Binghamton. The overall game is still exciting and warranting of such high praise, but for Baty to take the next step, he needs to put less baseballs on the field dirt.

For Álvarez, questions come with his defense. In his FanGraphs’ profile, he grades out with a 55 FV (future value) defensively, but has only a 45 at this moment. The 20 year-old has a strong arm, but his defensive game overall is cause for some worry. He threw out 23% of all base runners last season, and graded out with -8.0 framing runs, which is Baseball Prospectus‘ metric.

Speaking of watching, you can now watch all four of the Mets full season affiliates on MiLB tv. The St. Lucie Mets were the lone holdout last year, and they’ve been officially added.

Top Prospects 

The Mets had five different prospect land on notable top-100 lists prior to this season. Álvarez, Baty, and Mauricio were effectively unanimous top-100 guys, with Mark Vientos landing on a few lists, and Alex Ramirez coming in at No. 100 on Keith Law’s list for the Athletic. These five just about fill out the top of most prospect rankings for the Mets, with a few discrepancies here and there.

However, those five are not the only names to note when looking for who can make an impact in Queens in the near future. Most closely to the majors, Carlos Cortes, Khalil Lee, and Nick Plummer are looking to build off strong 2021 campaigns. Plummer joins the Mets after being in the Cardinals organization for his entire career prior. All three figure to get a lot of outfield reps in Syracuse this season. Vientos continue to bounce around the diamond for Syracuse between third, first, and some corner outfield.

Binghamton will be the team to watch. Álvarez, Baty, and Mauricio will all begin the season there, but will not be the only prospects to watch. Speedster and great glove man, Jake Mangum, will also be in Binghamton as their center fielder.

Brooklyn will be another fun team as well, with Jaylen Palmer getting starts all over the field, Jose Peroza, Wilmer Reyes, and JT Schwartz on the infield. Ramirez projects to start the year in St. Lucie again, alongside Stanley Consuegra and infielder William Lugo.

The Mets have solid starting pitching depth as well, with obvious names like David Peterson and Tylor Megill, and others who might fly under most radars such as Jose Butto, Josh Walker, Cole Gordon, and Thomas Szapucki.

Pitchers such as Brian Metoyer, Eric Orze, and Colin Holderman all have bright futures and have impressed recently in the farm system. While its tough to label arms as “relief prospects”, all three fit the profile. The Mets will reportedly be passive with most of the top arms they drafted last season with Mike Mayer‘s report that Dominic Hamel, Calvin Ziegler, Christian Scott, and Mike Vasil all slated to start the season in St. Lucie.

The Mets brought in a solid international free agency class this past winter, lead by outfielders Willy Fañas and Simon Juan. They join an impressive group of outfielders working their way through the system, such as Ramirez and Stanley Consuegra. Mets fans will also have to wait to see right-hander pitching Joel Diaz, he will start the season in extending spring.

New Names In New Places

The Mets did not sign first round selection Kumar Rocker last season, but every other selection they made. Ziegler, Hamel, Schwartz, and Scott were their final selections in the first five rounds, and all will play their first full season with the Mets this year. SS/2B Kevin Kendall (7th round) is also starting the season in St. Lucie as reported by Mike Mayer, and will be joined by at least Levi David (9th round) and Vasil, as previously noted.

Sixth rounder Carson Seymour and 10th rounder Keyshawn Askew will also start the year in Port St. Lucie.

The 2022 MLB Draft

The 2022 MLB Amateur Draft will take place from July 17-19 during the All-Star festivities in Los Angeles. As of right now, the Mets are slated to have the 11th and 14th overall selections, their second and third round picks, and then at least one Compensatory Round-2 selection for the departure of Noah Syndergaard, and the possibility of a second, depending on the contractual situation of Michael Conforto.

The 11th overall selection comes from a failure to sign last year’s 10th pick Kumar Rocker, and the 14th is based on their 2021 record. These five selections that are confirmed are all slated to fit inside the top-100 selections in July, which gives the Mets a great chance to add to their farm system in a year with a loaded draft class.

There have been few mock drafts this early on, but one from Prospects Live in January ties the Mets to two arms in the first round: American Heritage (HS-FLA) left-hander Brandon Barriera at 11 and Tennessee hard throwing righty Blade Tidwell. Tidwell missed the first few weeks of the season with soreness, but recently returned to the Vols rotation.

The second mock to note comes from Baseball America, who mocked Illinois prep left-hander Noah Schultz and James Madison outfielder Chase DeLauter at numbers 11 and 14 overall respectively. These two mocks seem to show that the expectation is that the Mets will select at prep arm with one of their first two selection in the first round, something the Mets have not done since Michael Fulmer in 2011.

The Mets are primed for a big season on the farm, with several players poised to take a big jump forward and the potential to add more prospects to the group. Metsmerized and Mets Minors will keep you up to speed on news, rumors, and scores from all four teams.