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With the Mets drafting Bretty Baty, Josh Wolf, and Matthew Allan with their first three picks of the draft, we knew the Mets were going to have to go heavy on college seniors in order to make sure the team could allocate their budget to sign their top three picks. We would see more of the same in the final 30 rounds of the draft with the team also picking a few players to try to sign in the attempt they are not able to entice Allan.
While the Mets did go heavy on seniors, they did some draft some juniors and Junior College players. They did draft three players as a back-up plan to Allan. Thirteenth round pick Blaine McIntosh, the 494th ranked draft prospect by Baseball America, has been described by MLB.com as “an explosive outfielder with well above average speed.” He’s expected to honor his commitment to Vanderbilt.
In the 24th round, the Mets drafted LHP Hunter Barco out of Bolles School in Jacksonville, Florida. He’s rated as the 32nd best draft prospect by Baseball America, 34th best by MLB Pipeline, and 42nd best by Fangraphs. Fangraphs describe Barco as “on the radar early and drawing comps to lower-slot elite lefties in the draft like Madison Bumgarner did when he was a prep underclassman.” While getting him would be a coup, he’s expected to honor hit commitment to Florida.
The ensuring draft pick RHP Joseph Charles was ranked as the 142nd best prospect by Baseball America and the 181st best prospect by MLB Pipeline. Kyler Peterson of Prospects Live noted Charles has a high 90s fastball, may be able to play center, and has every intention of attending North Carolina in the fall.
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- Draft Tracker
- Mets Select 3B Brett Baty With 12th Pick | Mets Select RHP Josh Wolf in Second Round
- Day One Recap
- Day Two Profiles: Round 3, 4, 5, 6, 7/8, 9/10
- Day Two Recap
One thing you will note with the aforementioned back-up plans is they were all drafted after the 10th round. There is sound logic in that decision making failing to sign a player drafted after the 10th round will not diminish the Mets bonus pool. It should be noted failing to sign Allan will do that by $667,900, which would make signing the aforementioned insurance plans more difficult, but not impossible.
While we could assume those three players will not be members of the Mets organization in 2019, there are a number of intriguing prospects who we should see reporting to Kingsport or Brooklyn within the next month.
The Mets 11th round draft pick, Jordan Martinson, comes from Dallas Baptist, a school which has sent 17 players to the Major Leagues. An article from The Ringer notes how Martinson has utilized an app called Pitch Grader. Martinson credits the app for some of his success saying, “I don’t think I would’ve been as successful, because now I can focus on things that make me good from an analytics-type standpoint instead of just throwing the ball down because that’s the old-school way.”
The Mets 12th round pick was Antoine Duplantis, who is LSU’s career hit leader. Currently, LSU is in the College World Series Super Regionals. Other Mets draftees playing in the Super Regionals include OF Jake Mangum (4th), OF Kennie Taylor (14th) , and RHP Cole Gordon (32nd).
In the 26th round, the Mets drafted LHP Mitchell Senger out of Stetson. Justin Coleman of Baseball America described him as a left-handed pitcher with a “funky delivery” and a solid slider. It will be interesting to see if the Mets keep him in the rotation like they did with last year’s seventh round pick Kevin Smith, or if they opt to move him to the bullpen.
When Justin Lasko was drafted in the 30th round, he became the 57th player in UMass’ history to be drafted. The school described him as their ace over the past three seasons, and he set school records in starts, innings pitched, and strikeouts. He lead the A-10 Conference in innings, complete games, and shutouts this year.
In the 33rd round, the Mets selected outfielder Cole Kleszcz from Azusa Pacific University. He was a Division II All-American and led the nation with 27 home runs.
Casey Slattery was the team’s 38th round selection out of Glendale C0llege. Baseball Consensus, an outlet which tracks Junior College players, describes Slattery as an athletic first baseman with natural power. Two picks later with the team’s final pick of the draft, they selected one last high school player, Camden Lovrich. He’s a two-way player announced as a pitcher. It will be interesting to see if he foregoes his Jacksonville State commitment.
If all goes according to plan, this was a very strong draft class. In fact, despite the team having the 12th pick in the draft, Jim Callis of MLB Pipeline rated the Mets as having the sixth best draft. If everyone signs, the first draft of Brodie Van Wagenen’s tenure as the General Manager was a big success, and credit is due to Tommy Marc Tramuta and Tommy Tanous for a job well done.
