The Mets have already called up two of the organization’s top three pitching prospects. Nolan McLean has taken the National League by storm, and Jonah Tong looked sharp in his MLB debut last week. The third member of their touted Triple-A trio could soon join them in the majors. SNY’s Andy Martino reports that righty Brandon Sproat is receiving “strong consideration” to make a start for the big league club in the near future.
A possible promotion for Sproat comes at the same time the Mets have been mulling a minor league stint for struggling righty Kodai Senga, who has a 6.56 ERA over his past eight starts (averaging just 4 1/3 innings per outing in that time).
That’s not as straightforward a decision as it might seem. The five-year, $75MM contract Senga signed when he came to MLB from Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball stipulates that he cannot be optioned to the minors without his consent. It’s not expressly clear that the Mets have asked him about to accept an optional assignment, though Mike Puma of the New York Post implied as much yesterday when writing that the organization expects to know whether Senga would approve the move by this weekend. Puma added that one way or another, the organization expects Sproat to make his big league debut before season’s end.
Sproat, 24, was the Mets’ second-round pick in 2023. The former Florida Gators standout has had an up-and-down year in Triple-A. He struggled to an ERA north of 6.00 in April/May before dominating with a combined 2.22 ERA in June and July. Sproat alternated between quality starts and clunkers throughout August. He’s sitting on a 4.24 ERA overall, and he’s punched out 22.1% of his opponents against a 10.6% walk rate. Those numbers look far better if you toss out the first two months of the season; Sproat has a 3.13 ERA, 25.7% strikeout rate and 10.1% walk rate in his past 14 starts. He tossed seven scoreless frames against the Yankees’ top affiliate his last time out, fanning nine hitters against only two walks along the way.
The uneven nature of Sproat’s season, coupled with the influx of talent from this year’s draft, has dropped him down — or even entirely off — most top-100 lists around the industry. ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel still lists him 83rd in the game, and Baseball America has Sproat at No. 98. Baseball America notes that his turnaround in Syracuse coincided with increased usage of his curveball, changeup and two-seamer, helping to diversify his repertoire and make him less predictable, as opponents had become too keyed-in on his four-seamer. The 6’3″, 215-pound Sproat is sitting 96.4 mph on that four-seamer this season, and both his changeup and slider draw above-average to plus grades from scouts.
While Sproat’s seemingly inevitable addition to the 40-man roster and his MLB debut will come after Sept. 1, he’ll still be eligible for postseason play. Any player in an organization prior to September is eligible for postseason rosters. Technically, the Mets would need to petition for him to be an injury replacement, but teams make this move every year. At times, we’ve even seen top prospects who weren’t on the 40-man roster at the beginning of September get selected to the roster in October make their MLB debuts in the playoffs (e.g. Shane McClanahan, Adalberto Mondesi, Alex Kirilloff).
Good clarification of the 9/1 eligibility rules. A lot of people don’t seem to understand that.
Yeah I was confused because I thought you had to be on the 40 man on 9/1 to be eligible for postseason but it’s only for newcomers
You do *technically* need to be on the 40 man roster prior to 9/1 to be eligible for the baseline playoff roster. However, injury replacements can be anyone who was in the organization prior to 9/1, and pretty much every team goes into the playoffs with 1 or 2 injured players they can “replace” in this way.
Mets still should have gone after Skenes. They have the prospects to get anyone they want.
Cherington does not want to be known as the guy that traded very young Paul skenes
They don’t though.
It would be very LOLmets to send a scuffling 30-something starter down to Triple-A.
Your obsession with LOLmets says more about you then anything else.
They got trolled with LOLmets by the Washington Nationals after losing a series in D.C.
Why not? They have 3 guys in the rotation that can’t get through 3 innings right now without spotting opponents 5 runs or more
Thank you for your post. As you know, each and every MLBTR post about the Mets carries a mandatory “Three ridiculous exaggerations” requirement. You have satisfied the first of these. We appreciate your contribution.
Great job of explaining why they shouldn’t call him up and how this is a “ridiculous exaggeration”. I urge you to actually watch the Mets and take a look at their starters game by game logs before coming on here and acting condescending and holier than thou.
I don’t think that Sproat is ready and I’m not sure he’ll ever be a good major league starter. He doesn’t have good shape on his four-seam fastball, and as we’ve seen with Helsley and Stanek, that doesn’t bode well.
Helsley is tipping his pitches and was the top closer in MLB last year. What are you even talking about?
Mets fans acted like Senga was the next Tom Seaver. Not much in the game of baseball makes me happier than the NY fans getting shafted. Especially since my team sucks anyways.
Let’s not get too carried away about a pitcher with a career 3.00 ERA. Once he gets some command back he will be back to one of the better pitchers in the league.
Barely 2 seasons worth of starts talking about career 3.00 ERA. He will probably be fine, but he’s a mid rotation arm on a team with that much $ to spend.
Recency bias is a disease.
More hyperbole. No one called him Tom Seaver. And personally, I never saw him as the prototypical ace type pitcher. But the fact is that until a month ago, his results, when healthy, are very, very ace-like.
If the Mets make the playoffs, I’d honestly rather see McLean and Tong start for them than the current crop of SP.
I’ve never seen anything like it where collectively an entire rotation struggles to get through even the 3rd or 4th inning.
Manaea seems to be pitching hurt, Holmes it seemed inevitable he’d be gassed from all the innings at this point, and senga went from dominant to not in the blink of an eye. Peterson was pitching like a borderline ace and then recently started getting blasted.
While I never trust the Mets just because it’s the Mets, the one big advantage of pitching these rookies in playoff games is other teams not having seen them. They truly could be the difference between going out in the first round vs going far in the playoffs.
I’ve thought Holmes should be bullpen bound for a while now and hopefully that ends up being the case, especially with Helsley being the massive bust he’s been.
If Tong has a few more strong outings I’d prefer to see McLean Tong Peterson in the playoff rotation, then go with whoever is hot from Manaea Senga Sproat
So the Mets want to take a chance on a pitcher who is really good HALF the time in AAA?
That means he’ll be awesome in MLB every time, 1/4th of the time.
They were lucky to win 2/3 to the Tigers. Their luck is running out.
Mets have played basically sub .500 for the better part of the year, so I’m not sure what luck you’re talking about.
But how were they lucky to win 2 out of 3 from Detroit when they smashed them the first 2 games offensively.
His overall numbers are meh but if you look at his game logs from the last two months, he’s been very good. Senga and Manaea have set a low bar lately so if he can give them 5-6 solid innings, they’ll gladly take it.
Do it. If Senga won’t go to the minors he can pitch from the pen for the rest of the season. He might actually be effective from the bullpen. Can’t be worse than Helsley.