For most of the other players taking the field in Port St. Lucie on April 6, 2025, it was just another day on the diamond. For Mets right-handed pitching prospect Matt Allan, it was the culmination of hard work after years of setbacks and rehabs.
The last time Allan had pitched in a professional regular season game was August 31, 2019, for the Brooklyn Cyclones in the now-defunct short-season New York-Penn League. The span between appearances? 2,046 days. Yep, you read that right. Over 2,000 days.
In the 2019 MLB Draft, Allan was considered the best high school pitching prospect in the country, ranking as the No. 13 overall prospect in the draft class according to MLB Pipeline. The Mets held the No. 12 pick in that draft, and at the time, I had heard that they had a high level of interest in Allan. But they had not selected a high school pitcher with a true first-round pick since Scott Kazmir in 2002.
The Mets would end up selecting third baseman Brett Baty with the No. 12 pick, and night one of the draft came and went with Allan going unselected. At the time, I took that as a sign that a top Florida high school pitcher was planning on fulfilling his commitment to the University of Florida with eyes on being a future No. 1 overall pick.
What I didn’t know was that there was an underlying condition referred to as an asymptomatic elbow that had scared teams off from using a first-round pick on him.
"I had a preexisting injury with my elbow, but I didn’t know it," Allan told SNY on The Mets Pod. "I never felt anything, and it didn’t bother me, but on my pre-draft MRI, that was one of the things that deterred teams in the first round because at that point my elbow was a ticking time bomb."
With the success rate of returning from Tommy John surgery increasing, the Mets decided collectively by then-general manager Brodie Van Wagenen, vice president of amateur scouting Tommy Tanous and scouting director Marc Tramuta that the risk was worth taking in the third round, with pick No. 89 overall.
The Mets ended up signing Allan for $2.5 million, essentially the equivalent of the slot value of the 28th overall pick. Allan immediately emerged as a top prospect in the Mets organization and became a unanimous top 100 prospect in the sport.
In 2019, he pitched with the Gulf Coast League Mets -- also a team and league that doesn’t exist anymore -- and joined Brooklyn for its New York-Penn League championship push. Then began the setbacks:
- The 2020 minor league season was canceled due to the COVID pandemic
- Allan underwent Tommy John surgery in May of 2021
- He underwent ulnar nerve transposition surgery in January of 2022
- He underwent UCL revision surgery (aka a second Tommy John) in February of 2023
There were times during the rehab that Allan wasn’t sure that his arm would ever rebound.
"Yeah, definitely," Allan said. "Mentally it was very tough. Even towards the end, when I knew I was healthy, I had questions if I would ever turn back to 2020 or 2021 Matt Allan, where I felt like I was on the top of the world. For a lot of people, it’s different mental hurdles at different points in rehab. Will I be able to play catch pain-free? Will I be able to throw 90 mph? Will I be able to throw off a mound? What’s going to happen when I face live hitters?"
When the calendar flipped to 2025, Allan had finally accomplished all of the above hurdles. He had a full, normal spring training, preparing for a full season to pitch just like everyone else for the first time as a professional baseball player.
He had previously thrown just three pitches – a four-seam fastball, curve ball and changeup. This spring, he added two pitches that he had never thrown before in his life -- a cutter and a gyro slider.
"Coming out of rehab, I realized I have good enough stuff that I could [only] make it so far," Allan explained about the additions to his repertoire, "but I want to make it to the big leagues and have a successful big league career."
Rehab was over, spring training was over, and April 6 came. It was time to do it for real. This wasn’t a bullpen session on the back fields or a live batting practice session. This game counted. Surprisingly, Allan didn’t feel the nerves until he toed the mound that day.
"I thought the plate looks a little further away than I thought," he said with a laugh. "Man, there are more people in the stands than I was expecting."
In stepped Marlins infield prospect Starlyn Caba, a top 100 prospect who was the headlining piece of the Jesús Luzardo trade this past offseason. Allan took a deep breath and uncorked his first pitch: a strike on a four-seam fastball at 97 mph.
"After strike one, I said thank God, let’s go, it’s time to roll," he said.
Allan proceeded to strike out Caba on six pitches, four of which were 97 mph fastballs. Before he knew it, his first outing in 2,046 days was complete. He went 2.2 innings, allowing two hits, zero runs, one walk and struck out five on 44 pitches.
After the game is when it set in the most for Allan, and it was a conversation with his mother that helped things settle.
"I was going over the game," Allan said. "I had a decent outing, and I was critiquing myself because I hold myself to a very high standard."
His mother stopped him and reminded him to take a breath and, in the big picture, realize what he accomplished. It wouldn’t have mattered if he had given up nine runs on nine home runs that day. He made it back.
The biggest struggle for Allan thus far in 2025 is not a surprising one to the organization, but is one to Allan himself.
"The biggest struggle I’ve had since coming back is just the overall feel and the overall command. The pitch-to-pitch recognition and feel of, say, a yanked fastball. Back in 2019 or 2020, that would last maybe a pitch or two, now it could be a whole inning just because of the reps I don’t have."
All of that will come back with time and repetition.
While this is a story of perseverance and a relentless work ethic, let’s not get it twisted -- this is a highly talented pitching prospect who just turned 24 years old, regaining a professional career. As of this writing, Allan has gotten into nine games, posting a 3.12 ERA across 17.1 innings, allowing 12 hits and 15 walks while striking out 19.
Allan is not concerned with those numbers. His focus is to remain healthy for a full season and get the feel for pitching back that he had over 2,000 days ago. He is not lacking in confidence, however.
"I feel like my stuff is as good as it’s ever been, and still not even close to as good as it’s going to be by the end of the season. As I continue to keep throwing these pitches that I’ve only thrown for half a year, they are just going to get better, and I am going to get more confident and fill up the zone even more. At that point, I am going to be really dangerous."
Time will tell what Matt Allan ultimately becomes as a baseball player, but a book that for some time looked to be closed just entered another chapter.