Mets under-the-radar prospects to watch in 2023

The 2022 season was an excellent year for Mets prospects with Francisco Álvarez, Brett Baty, and Mark Vientos making great strides in the minors before giving fans a taste of their major league futures late in the season.

While all three are still technically prospects, they’re likely to graduate from that status in the early part of the 2023 season. 

With the organization continuing to make gains in the player development department, here are some names who could help fill the impending gaps on prospect lists.

Relievers who could debut in 2023

The Mets entered this past season with much less uncertainty in their bullpen than 2023’s projected roster suggests, but they still needed contributions at various points during the year from rookies like Colin Holderman (who was traded over the summer) and Bryce Montes de Oca, who both flashed intriguing potential. So even if the team, as expected, brings in veterans to bridge the gap to Edwin Díaz, there will still be opportunities for pitchers to be promoted from within to serve a role.

One name who virtually came out of nowhere and put himself on the radar this year is Grant Hartwig, who originally signed as an undrafted free agent out of Miami (OH) in 2021. I’m not exactly sure the Mets saw his ascension coming either, as he opened his first full pro season as an old-for-the-level 24-year-old in Single-A and finished it in Triple-A. Across a remarkable four levels, Hartwig posted a 1.75 ERA with 83 strikeouts in 56.2 innings. His 35.5 percent strikeout rate led all pitchers in the organization who threw at least 50 innings, one spot ahead of Montes de Oca.

Hartwig sat in the low 90s as a starter in college but was up to 96 mph as a full-time reliever this year. He gets good sink with a bunch of armside run on his fastball and complements it with a slider that grades out as a plus pitch and a changeup that he used infrequently. Hartwig was ineffective in the Arizona Fall League, but it’s fair to chalk that up to running out of gas as his inclusion on the roster alone was noteworthy.

Dedniel Núñez has had a winding road of a professional career thus far, but his journey may reach its destination in 2023. The Mets originally signed him as a 20-year-old in October 2016, much older than the typical international player inks his first contract. Núñez began to generate buzz in 2019 with a strong performance between Single-A and High-A but was shut down in July and didn’t pitch at all in 2020. 

Still, the Giants selected him in the Rule 5 Draft that winter and he appeared to have a shot at making San Francisco’s Opening Day roster in 2021 before needing Tommy John surgery. He was ultimately returned to the Mets after the season, per the Rule 5 regulations.

Núñez’s 2022 season — his first in three years — was essentially a trial run, though it ended up being pretty successful. He spent most of the summer with Double-A Binghamton, where he struck out 43 in 28.1 innings with a fastball that had regained its 96-98 mph velocity and a slider in the upper 80s. Núñez has to show he can handle more experienced competition in Triple-A first, but he has major league stuff.

Young bats

The Mets spent most of their international bonus pool on Álvarez on July 2, 2018, so they needed a bit of assistance to make one last splash on the IFA market that summer. When they traded Jeurys Familia to the Oakland Athletics at the deadline, they acquired a pair of minor leaguers and $1 million in bonus money, which they used nearly half of to sign SS/3B William Lugo. He came straight to the United States and played two seasons as a teenager in the Florida Complex League around the time of the pandemic.

Lugo did little to warrant a mention over his first couple of seasons, but he moved up to the full-season level as a 20-year-old in 2022 and put together a strong campaign between St. Lucie and Brooklyn, hitting 14 home runs with a .779 OPS and 121 wRC+. Lugo hits the ball exceptionally hard for his age, routinely posting exit velocities in the triple digits and as high as 110 mph. He ended up on an impressive list of young hitting prospects to meet certain statistical benchmarks (click through the tweet below to the list in the thread) and is primed to reach Double-A as a 21-year-old at some point next summer.

Way down at the lowest level of the organization is another infield prospect with standout power, Jesus Báez. He received the fourth-highest signing bonus of the Mets’ 2021-22 international class but had the best pro debut of the group, hitting seven home runs and driving in 34 runs in 54 games, and earning the organization’s Dominican Complex Player of the Year award.

Báez was already in Port St. Lucie for a fall minicamp (along with Simón Juan and Willy Fañas, who received seven-figure bonuses in the same class) so he’ll likely play in the Florida Complex League as an 18-year-old next year. Numbers at this stage are less important than the raw tools, and the pop in his bat at a young age makes him worth keeping tabs on.

Young arms

The Mets have had a bunch of international pitchers show intriguing progress over the past 12-to-18 months, particularly those who signed in 2019 or 2020 and had their pro debuts delayed by the pandemic. Their initial development went on behind the scenes (i.e. not in leagues where stats are kept and video is published), so their mere appearances in St. Lucie this year garnered significant interest. 

Two such pitchers caught the attention of other organizations as well and were used in trades — Jose Acuña to the Cincinnati Reds for Tyler Naquin and, just recently, Franklin Sánchez to the Miami Marlins for Jeff Brigham and Elieser Hernández.

In a promising trend, the Mets seem to be cranking out young pitchers with intriguing profiles with more regularity. Two in particular fit the mold of having signed in 2019 and reaching the full-season level in what is technically their second pro season (meaning there is less public data on them), but their third overall year in the organization (so they’ve been developing with the coaches and staff for longer).

Layonel Ovalles has been generating buzz after he struck out 44 in 29.1 innings in his stateside debut in the FCL before making five appearances for St. Lucie at the end of the year. He’s just 19 years old (he won’t turn 20 until next June) and ran his fastball up to 97 mph in that FSL stint with a big bending curve and a changeup. Ovalles is a big kid at a listed 6-foot-3, 216 pounds, and should open 2023 in St. Lucie’s rotation, where he’ll be one of the youngest pitchers in the league.

Another name I’ll be watching is Jawilme Ramírez, another right-hander who took home some hardware this season as the Florida Complex League Pitcher of the Year. At 20 years old, Ramírez recorded an 0.84 ERA in 43 IP with 40 strikeouts to just six walks -- numbers that are difficult to fathom. He also earned a cameo with St. Lucie at the end of the season, where he showed less velocity than Ovalles but had excellent vertical break on his fastball, also mixing in a slider and change.

Personal favorite

When you’re a late-round draft pick, you may not be given that many opportunities to show what you’re made of. Taking advantage of those small openings is crucial. Wyatt Young was a 15th-round draft pick (in the first 20-round Draft in 2021) and didn’t immediately appear to be in line for priority reps, but that quickly changed.

Young received a call-up to play in a handful of major league spring training Games in March — not even as an official non-roster invite — and doubled and singled in one of them. After just five games in April with High-A Brooklyn, he was promoted all the way to Triple-A — less than a year after he was drafted — initially as an emergency fill-in but eventually as an everyday starter for three weeks as he hit .352 with an .882 OPS in 19 games.

That performance essentially got him a promotion by demotion as he settled in with Double-A Binghamton for the rest of the year. Young has an incredible eye and bat-to-ball skills, with his plate discipline data ranking among the best in all of the minors. He showed a bit of power with seven homers, but he stands at 5-foot-7 so that just isn’t going to be his game.

Young is an easy guy to root for and his early returns aren’t making it any more difficult. He might make it back to Syracuse in 2023, where he’ll certainly be given a hero’s welcome after his magical run last season delighted the local fanbase.