Mets Minors: The prospect pyramid

One of the things you get asked by a casual Met fan when you cover the minor leagues is more generally, “How is the farm system?” This is a loaded question but also a fair one. Casual Met fans don’t have time to deep dive into individual prospects and, while they might know some of the Top Tier talent they want to know what sort of talent is coming up from below them.

One way of gauging how well a Minor League system is doing is to look at how the team’s prospects line up into tiers. Below we’ll be reviewing these tiers and outlining some former Mets and how they fit into this type of ranking.

For those of you who don’t have the time to get into a team’s full prospect depth, here is the quick trick to determine a team’s general minor league health. Sort a Top 100 MLB Prospect List by team and count how many names your organization has. If your team has more than three players listed, you have above the league average and if you have less, you’re below. The quality of these rankings is also important, as the Mets having 10th, 45th and 53rd is more impressive than the Rockies coming in at 50th, 93rd and 95th.

You cannot really trust these rankings though as they may overlook players who deserve Top 100 status because of prospect pedigree alone. That’s why we’ll be doing a deep dive into the Met’s tiered prospects today.

Tier 1: Can’t Miss Prospects

• Francisco Alvarez, C

Not every “Top Tier Prospect” pans out, but it is shocking if a player in this echelon doesn’t see time in the majors. Some former members of this group include Jose Reyes, David Wright, Matt Harvey and Noah Syndergaard. It’s worth noting that Lastings Milledge, Fernando Martinez and Wilmer Flores also belong to this group. The Mets only have one player who is truly top tier but only the best minor leagues do. A bad franchise will have no prospects who truly qualify at this level and the best will have up to three.

Tier 2: All Star Futures

• Brett Baty, 3B
• Ronny Mauricio, SS
• Mark Vientos, 3B

Prospects who are listed in Baseball America’s Top 100 will either fall within Tier 1 or Tier 2 (with some Tier 3 sneaking into the rankings for good measure. With thirty baseball teams no team should have more than 3-5 players ranked in these tiers but you’ll see some teams with deep franchises and a disproportionate share of these high tier prospects. This group of players has a ton of potential for major league success but lack a measure of the pedigree and expectations that comes from the Top Tier. Some former Met prospects in this group include Michael Conforto, Michael Fulmer, Travis d’Arnaud and Pete Alonso. You do see players ranked this well fizzle out in the majors or never quite make the leap. The most recent example of this is Ike Davis, whose brief success was overshadowed as he fell from grace.

Tier 3: Well, I Haven’t Heard of Them

• Matt Allan
• J.T. Ginn
• Khalil Lee
• Thomas Szapucki
• Robert Dominguez
• Carlos Cortes
• Alexander Ramirez

The 3rd tier of prospects don’t have the pedigree and haven’t put everything in place along the timeline that scouts would like. This might mean they are too young and unproven (Robert Dominguez and Alexander Ramirez) or it might mean they are now recovering from surgery (Matt Allen) but all of the players in this pool are not quite as buzz-worthy as others. This should not suggest that these players cannot have great futures. Consider that Jacob deGrom is a key former member of this echelon and remember that you can see big things from just about anyone. Some other notable Mets from this level would include Brandon Nimmo, Dominic Smith, Jeff McNeil and Steven Matz. At this level, you don’t really notice if a player doesn’t reach the majors as the expectations from here on down are that most will not.

Tier 4: Players Who Might Surprise You

• Jose Peroza
• Jose Butto
• Dominic Hamel
• Calvin Ziegler
• Jaylen Palmer
• Wagner Lagrange
• Hayden Senger
• Harol Gonzalez
• Jake Mangum
• Luis Carpio
• Tony Dibrell
• Josh Walker
• Junior Santos
• Adrian Hernandez
• Luke Ritter

You don’t expect anyone from this group to be a major league superstar but you hold onto hopes that some of them will have viable Met careers or, at least, a moment or two. These players get some success in the minors and move their way up the rankings but never manage to capture the imaginations of the scouts involved. Most times you get a player who serves a minor role or hangs on as a formidable bench player but every once in a while, someone steps up to prove the rule by being a great big exception to it. The exception I’d like to bring up is Collin McHugh. For people who weren’t covering the Mets minor league system back in those days, McHugh was coming up through the system amidst names like Jenrry Mejia and Jeurys Familia people just assumed his minor league successes were fluky. When he was traded and became a major part of a World Series winning team everyone was surprised. More common success stories from this level would include players like Juan Lagares, Seth Lugo, Luis Guillorme and Tylor Megill.

Tier 5: So, There’s A Chance

Anyone who gets listed in the Top 50 and some players who don’t get the ranking but deserve it fit into this group. The odds of these players making the majors aren’t great and a Minor League system’s health is largely determined by how many Tier 5 players rank in the team’s overall Top 50. The Mets have twenty-four players who cannot be justifiably ranked as Tier 4 or better in their Top 50 which puts them in a distinctly weaker standing. A player who somehow managed to climb to the majors from this deep level of obscurity would be Tomas Nido (Patrik Mazeika to a lesser extent).

Tier 6: Like a Snowball in Hell

The minor league systems are unquestionably deep and filled with countless players who will never factor onto a major league squad. If a player from this group does reach the majors they will likely be seen at a number of other tiers before they reach the majors. Consider that Senger would have been in this group prior to 2021 and he now resides in the bottom half of the Mets Top 20. Players who fall off of the Top 50 thanks to poor minor league play are typically found down here. Think of prospects like Desmond Lindsay and Shervyen Newton.