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*In an effort to make the nomination voting easier for everyone, I will comment, “NOMINATIONS”, and you may reply to that with your picks and upvote the player you’d like to see on the next nominee list.

After just barely losing last round to outfielder Devin Taylor, right-handed starter prospect Mason Barnett was the clear winner for the 11th-best prospect in the A’s system as voted on by A’s fans. Barnett, the headline return piece from Kansas City the A’s got back in exchange for Lucas Erceg, made his big league debut this past season, getting a quick cup of coffee in the big leagues. The righty didn’t look all that great in Triple-A this past season, his first at that level, and he predictably struggled against higher competition in the big leagues. The team will continue letting him develop in Triple-A to open the year but he’s likely one of the first callups when an injury inevitably pops up. We’ll all be hoping he takes advantage of that chance when it comes.

The next nominee joining the remaining four is right-handed pitcher Gunnar Hoglund. Another far ago top trade return, Hoglund’s professional career has been dogged by seemingly never-ending injuries. After four years climbing the minor league ladder he finally made it to the big leagues this past season after dominating at Triple-A to open the year. And he looked good over his first couple of starts in the big leagues. Unfortunately the injury bug seemed to crop up again as he struggled hard in his final few starts with the A’s, The righty would undergo hip surgery in mid-June, prematurely ending his rookie season. There haven’t been any reports of any sort of setbacks but we’ll be finding out soon if there have been since everyone is reporting in for duty.

The process for this public vote is explained below. Please take a moment to read this before participating:

• Please only vote for one. The player with the most votes at the end of voting will win the ranked spot. The remaining four players move on to the next ballot where they are joined by a new nominee.
• In the comments, below the official voting, the community will nominate players to be put onto the ballot for the next round. The format for your comment should be “Nomination: Player Name”.
• If a prospect is traded, his name will be crossed out, and all other players will be moved up a space. If a prospect is acquired, a special vote will be put up to determine where that player should rank.

Click on the link here to vote!

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A’s fans top prospects, ranked:

1. Leo De Vries, SS
2. Jamie Arnold, LHP
3. Gage Jump, LHP
4. Wei-En Lin, LHP
5. Braden Nett, RHP
6. Henry Bolte, OF
7. Johenssy Colome, SS
8. Edgar Montero, SS
9. Steven Echavarria, RHP
10. Devin Taylor, OF
11. Mason Barnett, RHP

The voting continues! Who will be voted as the 12th-best prospect in the A’s system? Here’s a quick rundown on each nominee— the scouting grades (on a 20-to-80 scale) and scouting reports come from MLB Pipeline.

Nominees on the current ballot:

Tommy White, 3B

Expected level: Double-A | Age: 22

2025 stats (A+/AA): 395 PA, .275/.334/.439, 23 doubles, 0 triples, 12 HR, 51 RBI, 29 BB, 54 K, 3 SB

MLB Pipeline grades and scouting report:

Scouting grades: Hit: 50 | Power: 60 | Run: 30 | Arm: 50 | Field: 40 | Overall: 45

White’s right-handed power is legitimate and he can hit the ball a long way to all fields thanks to his strength and bat speed. He might be known for his home run totals but he’s a better overall hitter than people think, finding the barrel consistently and limiting strikeouts. His knack for contact can lead to him expanding his strike zone, but he doesn’t swing and miss very often.

It will be White’s bat that carries him to the big leagues. He’s a well-below-average runner who likely lacks the range and tools to stick at third base, where he toiled as a sophomore and junior, earning praise for playing through a shoulder injury at LSU in 2023. He’s likely headed to first base long term, which could give the A’s a glut of serious offensive talent between him and first-rounder Nick Kurtz.

Shotaro Morii, SS/RHP

Expected level: Low-A | Age: 19

2025 stats (Rookie Affiliate): 188 PA, .258/.399/.384, 8 doubles, 1 triple, 3 HR, 27 RBI, 36 BB, 47 K, 4 SB

MLB Pipeline grades and scouting report:

Scouting grades (hitter): Hit: 50 | Power: 50 | Run: 55 | Arm: 60 | Field: 50 | Overall: 40

Scouting grades (pitcher): Fastball: 55 | Slider: 40 | Curveball: 45 | Splitter: 50 | Control: 45 | Overall: 40

At the plate, Morii features a smooth left-handed swing with tremendous balance. His power stands out, as he clubbed 45 home runs as a high schooler. He is considered an advanced hitter with good barrel control. On the mound, his fastball has been clocked as high as 95 mph and sits around 92-93. He also brings a splitter with nasty movement, a true 12-to-6 curveball and a tighter slider with solid bite and depth, though that offering will probably require some fine-tuning. Having only been pitching with regularity for less than two years, Morii’s arm is relatively fresh as he enters the organization.

Morii’s high-octane throwing arm plays well at shortstop, but some evaluators see a possibility of moving to third base as his 6-foot-1 frame fills out. While scouts see Morii’s long-term future in the batter’s box, the A’s plan on giving him every opportunity to succeed as a two-way player, with excitement already building over his impressive physical traits and desire to become one of the next great players out of Japan.

Henry Baez, RHP

Expected level: Triple-A | Age: 23

2025 stats (Double-A): 2.39 ERA, 23 starts, 109 IP, 100 K, 35 BB, 3 HR, 3.19 FIP

MLB Pipeline grades and scouting report:

Scouting grades: Fastball: 55 | Curveball: 55 | Changeup: 45 | Control: 50 | Overall: 45

The 6-foot-3 right-hander has gained velocity steadily in his years as a pro and has touched as high as 99 mph this season. He typically sits around 94 mph, working north-south with the pitch while getting most of his whiffs up and to the armside. He played off that with a 76-79 mph curveball that could have more slurvish tendencies, but at its best, it snapped downward to fool batters sitting on the high heat and it had produced a 47 percent miss rate at the time of the trade. He also utilizes an 83-86 mph split-change to miss bats, but it stands out more for its separation than movement profile.

Baez took a major jump in workload but didn’t let his control improvements suffer. That certainly helps his starting chances, as does his 50.1 percent ground-ball rate from 2024. He’s still only 22, but with his place on the roster now set, the A’s (never afraid to move guys quickly) could try to see what it looks like in the big leagues in a relief role to ease him in.

Gunnar Hoglund, RHP

Expected level: Triple-A/Majors | Age: 26

2025 stats (Triple-A): 2.43 ERA, 6 starts, 29 2/3 IP, 30 K, 7 BB, 3 HR, 4.17 FIP

2025 stats (Majors): 6.40 ERA, 6 starts, 32 1/3 IP, 23 K, 11 BB, 10 HR, 6.75 FIP

MLB Pipeline grades and scouting report:

Scouting grades: Fastball: 45 | Slider: 55 | Changeup: 50 | Control: 60 | Overall: 45

Though Hoglund may never get back the electric stuff he possessed earlier in his career, the A’s were encouraged to see his fastball velocity tick back up to the low-90s. He has also experimented with adding a two-seamer and cutter. His low-80s slider now features more sweeping action and works as his main secondary pitch. He has also improved his low-80s changeup, creating a solid three-pitch mix that is enhanced by a strong ability to consistently throw strikes.

Now three years removed from Tommy John, the A’s are hopeful that Hoglund can develop into a solid back-end rotation piece, especially if he can successfully develop a fourth pitch. The Florida native was regularly going deep into starts in his big league cameo (6.40 ERA with 23 strikeouts to 11 walks across 32 1/3 innings) before going down with the injury and is expected to make a full recovery before the 2026 season.

Cole Miller, RHP

Expected level: Single-A | Age: 20

2025 stats (ROK, Single-A): 1.90 ERA, 12 starts (15 appearances), 52 IP, 45 K, 11 BB, 1 HR, 3.38 FIP

MLB Pipeline grades and scouting report:

Scouting grades: Fastball: 55 | Slider: 50 | Changeup: 50 | Control: 45 | Overall: 40

The A’s were working on some mechanical adjustments with Miller prior to his injury. His electric fastball ticked up to 96 mph in high school and displayed excellent movement down in the zone. The mid-80s slider is a hard breaker and was showing signs of improvement. His low-80s changeup showed some potential as an average third pitch.

There was real excitement within the organization for Miller’s professional debut. His three-pitch mix and large 6-foot-6 frame give off the potential of a workhorse-type starting pitcher in the big leagues. The A’s also loved the competitiveness they saw from him on the mound while scouting him. After an unfortunate delay, he finally got his first opportunity to make an impression this summer.

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Programming Note: Each CPL vote will run for around 48 hours, so don’t delay in making your vote!

Well, this sucks. News out of Salt River Fields this morning, that Corbin Carroll suffered a broken hamate bone in his right hand, during live batting practice. This is going to cause him to miss significant time in spring training, and almost certainly on into the regular season. We do not know yet how bad the injury is, but in general it would be an 8-10 week recovery time, which would definitely be the first couple of weeks of regular season games, at the very least. But hands are tricky things, and there’s no guarantee that he will be back to full strength and capacity at the end of that time.

The D-backs were already thin in the outfield, after the trades of Jake McCarthy and Blaze Alexander, and the ongoing injury of Lourdes Gurriel Jr. That leaves just Jorge Barrosa and Alek Thomas the only healthy outfielders on the 40-man roster. The Ryan Waldschmidt era might end up arriving sooner than we would have liked…

The first great team from the Andrew Friedman era came within one game of reaching the ultimate goal despite all of the shenanigans, malfeasances, and such they had to deal with during the 2017 World Series. We aren’t here to dwell on the what-ifs; there’s been plenty of that for far too long. We’re here to remember a specific game that gets lost in the weeds of all that happened in that Fall Classic—one that, had Kenley Jansen completed the save, had Yu Darvish not completely imploded in Game 7, had one of many things gone differently, would be lauded to this day. Before all that transpired in this series, Clayton Kershaw was magnificent in Game 1, unhittable, his pristine great self in leading the Dodgers to a narrow victory over the Astros.

Before addressing that specific game, perhaps it’s worth, with the benefit of hindsight, pondering if 2017 was in fact, the last great chance for Kershaw to dramatically flip the script on the narrative of his postseason woes. Kershaw handled his decline with as much grace and adaptability as any superstar could ever hope for. Even in the twilight years of his career, the left-hander found ways to be significantly above average while also being a shell of his former self. By the time that first championship came around, Kershaw was still superb, but Walker Buehler was the fear-inducing presence amongst starters on that team. The performances throughout that extended postseason were great, but it was no longer truly his team; it was more of him being a part of it. Sure, the individualization of teams is an overplayed and quite tiresome phenomenon, but that doesn’t mean none of these points aren’t true.

If we account for the painful memories of 2019 and that in 2018, the Dodgers had a mountain to climb against a historically good Boston Red Sox team, that 2017 squad, still with Kershaw as its unquestionable ace, represented the last chance for this future Hall of Famer to change the narrative, and for a while, it looked like he’d do it. While even in 2017, one could argue he had already taken a small step back from his dominant era between 2011 and 2014, Kershaw was still inarguably amongst the game’s best, even if he couldn’t sit at 95 mph consistently.

After a pedestrian showing in Game 1 of the NLDS in 2017, one that still saw Kershaw earn the win over the Diamondbacks, the left-hander was terrific in helping the Dodgers win the NL pennant. The Dodgers won all three of Kershaw’s starts in the NLDS and NLCS, including a performance of six one-run innings to help clinch the NL pennant in Wrigley. Kershaw on one side, Justin Verlander on the other — on top of many other narratives, that World Series featured two of the great pitchers of the 21st century looking to put past postseason woes behind them in search of that elusive first championship.

Unfortunately, the schedules weren’t lined up as Houston went to the wire to beat the Yankees in the ALCS, so Kershaw had to face Dallas Keuchel in Game 1 of that World Series—the left-hander delivered in yet another game that the Dodgers’ offense didn’t give him a whole lot of support, scoring only three runs.

Facing a righty-heavy lineup with the likes of Carlos Correa, Alex Bregman, George Springer, and José Altuve, all while possessing the ability to actually surprise them with his patented down-and-in slider, Kershaw gave no quarter in a masterful showing of seven one-run innings to earn his first World Series win.

Springer, in particular, who would go on to torch the Dodgers in that series, gave no signs of what was to come, as he struck out all three times against Kershaw and then one more against Kenley Jansen just for good measure.

The one time the Dodgers’ starter might’ve been slightly rattled, following giving up a solo shot to Alex Bregman, he punched out the side in order, retiring Altuve, Correa, and Gurriel.

Here are all of Kershaw’s 11 strikeouts:

And since the other two hits Kershaw allowed were both singles, when he left the mound after seven innings of work, the Astros hadn’t had a single at-bat with a runner in scoring position. Whatever happened after this game, one could not ask anything more out of even the very best in these circumstances against such a talented opponent.

We’ve officially wrapped up our countdown of our list of the Mets’ top twenty-five prospects going into the 2026 season. We hope you enjoyed it, and that it was as educational to everyone reading as it was enjoyable for us putting it together. We encourage everyone to use the comment section to submit questions about the state of the Mets’ farm system, our 2026 list, our individual lists, or anything else you have questions about. We’ll do our best to answer everyone!

Here, then, is the full list, complete with links to each player’s write-up:

1. Nolan McLean
2. Carson Benge
3. Jonah Tong
4. Jett Williams*
5. Brandon Sproat*
6. A.J. Ewing
7. Jacob Reimer
8. Ryan Clifford
9. Will Watson
10. Jack Wenninger
11. Mitch Voit
12. Jonathan Santucci
13. Elian Peña
14. Zach Thornton
15. Nick Morabito
16. R.J. Gordon
17. Chris Suero
18. Dylan Ross
19. Ryan Lambert
20. Antonio Jimenez
21. Edward Lantigua
22. Eli Serrano III
23. Randy Guzman
24. Daiverson Gutierrez
25. Boston Baro
26. Marco Vargas
27. Peter Kussow

WRITER’S THOUGHTS: PROSPECTS 25-11

WRITER’S THOUGHTS: PROSPECTS 10-1

Amazin’ Avenue 2026 Mets Top 25 Prospect List

As always, a special thanks goes out to our friends at Baseball Prospectus, Baseball America, FanGraphs, and the countless others who have contributed to our collective knowledge of the Mets’ farm system through first-hand information or secondary sources. Another thanks goes out to the various photographers who have graciously allowed Amazin’ Avenue to use their shots over the years.

Last but certainly not least, the Amazin’ Avenue minor league team thanks our amazing community for their continued passion and enthusiasm. None of this would be possible—or needed—without your continued support.

Love the Mets, Love the Mets!

We all know Henri Matisse the painter, with his vivid use of color and bold brushstrokes, leading with emotion over realism (distinct characteristics of Fauvism, so named after critics referred to the artists of the movement as fauves, or “wild beasts”). But in his later years, declining health made painting inaccessible, so he shifted to cut-outs, with aid from his studio assistants. Matisse would hold the scissors and they would rotate the paper until he’d reached his desired shape, and from there they would pin the cut-out to a surface, be it paper or wall, that allowed him to continue to adjust its location. 

Initially dismissed as childish, respect for this era of Matisse’s work grew over time. They are deceptively simple and utterly beguiling, beckoning the viewer to look again, and again, and again. One of the most frequently cited examples of negative space, they are an eternally paradoxical visual of cause-and-effect. Which part of the piece was the original cutout? What part is leftover? In some pieces, like “Composition, Black and Red,” Matisse used both the positive and negative forms of the cut-out, leaving the viewer to puzzle further over what matches and what is just in imitation.

Henri Matisse. Composition, Black and Red (Composition, noir et rouge). 1947 – Museum of Modern Art

Right now, before the season has begun, before pitchers and catchers have even reported for Spring Training, the reality of José Ferrer is obscured by the looming negative space left behind by Harry Ford. A high-profile trade where your team receives a reliever can be hard to swallow. A high-profile trade where your team trades their MLB-ready first round draft pick for a reliever can be like trying to stuff a chainsaw down your gullet. I don’t seek to relitigate the grading of the trade here; that’s been done many times over and, frankly, the deal itself is done. It’s time to move on. Instead, let us peer into that space and see what shape Ferrer might take in Seattle.

Jerry Dipoto and his front office have allegedly had their eyes on Ferrer since 2019 when, according to Daniel Kramer’s story, they tried to acquire him at the trade deadline. “We feel like we got the number one trade target on our list,” Dipoto crowed at the Winter Meetings. And while Ferrer lacked some of the name recognition of baseball’s top relievers, he’s squarely alongside – or ahead – of them on various leaderboards. He’s got a sub-3.0 FIP in his last two years of work, having adjusted some early-career control challenges and mitigating hard contact – in 2025, he only allowed five home runs in his 76.1 innings. As Connor Donovan pointed out in the news write-up, he is an elite ground ball pitcher whose ground ball rate of 62.6% was third among all relievers (minimum 50 innings pitched), after Jhoan Duran and Tim Hill.

Ferrer leads with a 98 MPH sinker, the fuel for those groundball rates, and mixes in a slider against lefties and a changeup for righties. A welcome second lefty in the ‘pen, he is a compelling player for the Mariners’ pitching development staff to tinker with. On a basic level, it seems likely they’ll have him seek to diversify his pitch mix, upping the changeup and slider rates and easing back on the fastball. I would also be quite curious to watch his bullpens in Spring Training, to see if any adjustments are made to his slider, which is certainly effective as-is but lacks some of the command that could maximize its efficacy like this nasty game-ender:

As John Trupin wrote earlier this week, Eduard Bazardo was a workhorse for Seattle’s bullpen last year, throwing 18 ⅓ innings on no rest – eighth-most in MLB. At sixth was Ferrer, pitching for 20 innings after an outing the day before. The Nationals were using him as their primary closer by the end of 2025, but that obviously will not be his role in Seattle. With club control through 2029, there’s ample flexibility for his development and his position within the ‘pen. His presence eases the burden on Gabe Speier when it comes to facing high-leverage lefties, and while they certainly would never be so rigid, it’s not hard to imagine a routine with Ferrer in the seventh, Matt Brash in the eight and Andres Munoz to close it out. Currently, the Mariners are looking at a locked-in relief corps of Munoz, Brash, Speier, Bazardo and Ferrer. That’s the kind of bullpen core that World Series teams are made of.

To the surprise of nobody who knows me, I found it exceptionally hard, in my ill-fated college art class, to relinquish control and make room for the negative space. I wanted to fill and coax and bodily drag the viewer into seeing exactly what I intended by drawing it all out for them. But that’s not how negative space works. It’s meant to be left alone, to shape through absence, and it tests both the resolution of the artist and the presence of the art around it. It is a show of strength, a leap not of faith but of surety, to leave blank space upon a canvas.

Phillies pitchers and catchers report to Clearwater today, effectively ending one of the dreariest off-seasons since team president Dave Dombrowski took over as head of baseball operations prior to the 2021 season.

Yes, he re-signed Kyle Schwarber, far-and-away the franchise’s primary goal over the winter, added free agent reliever Brad Keller to set up closer Jhoan Duran, brought back J.T. Realmuto to guide the pitching staff behind the dish and inked outfielder Adolis Garcia to a one-year deal. Nick Castellanos will soon be gone (we think!), Matt Strahm is in Kansas City, and Harrison Bader’s fun run in Philly ended.

Much has been made about what the Phillies didn’t do this off-season. Despite a desire to change up the team’s mix of players, most of the everyday lineup returns in 2026. Infielder Bo Bichette was stolen away from them by a Mets team that has re-made their roster in a way that some Phils fans with Dombrowski had done, and most of the same players that have frustrated over the last few seasons are back to give things another go.

It remains to be seen whether Dombrowski’s decisions were wise. Six weeks of spring training and 162 games over six months of regular season baseball await. However you feel about the ‘26 Phillies as the mitts start poppin’ down in Clearwater, their spring is off to a much better start than their two top rivals in the NL East.

On Tuesday, the Atlanta Braves announced starting pitcher Spencer Schwellenbach was being placed on the 60-day injured list with inflammation in his pitching elbow. Not long after that announcement, the Mets announced All Star shortstop Francisco Lindor could be out for six weeks due to an injury to the hamate bone in his left hand.

For Atlanta, it’s a continuation of a slew of injuries that have derailed their chances of competing for a World Series each of the last two years.

This marks the second straight year in which Schwellenbach was placed on the 60-day IL for elbow inflammation at the beginning of the season. He eventually made 17 starts and posted a 3.09 ERA over 110.2 innings last year, a solid finish to his second big league season, and he’s always been trouble for the Phillies. In five career regular season starts, he’s 3-0 with a 2.01 ERA in 31.1 innings against Philadelphia. His absence once again leaves the Braves with a lineup full of household names and serious questions about stability and durability.

Chris Sale will be the likely Opening Day starter after yet another brilliant season with the Braves, but at 37 years old, does he have another All Star campaign in him? Spencer Strider, who missed all of 2024 with a torn ACL, returned to post a 4.45 ERA in 23 starts last year. Once the undisputed best starter in the National League, he is a major question mark as the ‘26 season begins. Reynaldo Lopez was signed as a free agent prior to last year but was injured during his first start with Atlanta. What will he bring to the table? And with Schwellenbach out, Grant Holmes (3.99 ERA in 115 innings) and Bryce Elder (5.30 ERA, 156.1 IP) fill out the rest of a suddenly suspect Atlanta rotation.

For all the question marks Phillies fans have about their rotation, the Braves appear to have even more.

As for Lindor, Mets GM David Stearns is optimistic his star shortstop will be ready for Opening Day, even if surgery is required.

Lindor, 32, has been remarkably durable during his Mets’ career, with 160+ games played in three of the last four seasons, and 152 games in 2024. With Juan Soto, Bichette, Jorge Polanco and Marcus Semien in the fold, New York’s lineup is well-suited to suffer a Lindor injury for a short amount of time. Still, it is never good for a star player to begin the season with surgery on a bone in their hand.

Before Phillies fans celebrate too much, there are a number of open questions regarding their roster as camp begins, too. How long after Opening Day will Zack Wheeler begin his 2026 season? Was Aaron Nola’s disastrous 2025 season a fluke or a trend? Will Andrew Painter make up for the loss of Ranger Suarez? Will the Phillies’ outfield be better on the field than they appear to be on paper now? Will Bryce Harper put together an All Star season? Who will provide power and production in the middle of the order?

All three teams in the National League East are dealing with some significant uncertainty as spring training begins.

Milwaukee’s pitching development staff has a reputation around the league as a “pitching lab.” As an organization, the Brewers have done a great job of developing pitchers with talent who were either unheralded or underperformed previously. In 2024, Tobias Myers turned into arguably the Brewers’ best starting pitcher. In 2025, Quinn Priester didn’t lose a game for literal months on end.

In 2026, I think recent acquisition Brandon Sproat is the best bet to follow this pattern.

Coming out of the University of Florida, Sproat was regarded — per Baseball America — “as an athletic righthander with arm speed who emphasized his fastball and changeup,” although his “shaky control induced reliever risk.” Despite the “risk,” he was drafted in the second round of the 2024 draft by the Mets and initially looked to be an amazing find. Sproat breezed through the lower minors and arrived in Triple-A before the end of his first professional season.

Unfortunately, he hit a wall there. The right-hander started seven games in 2024 for the Syracuse Mets, posting a 7.53 ERA. His peripherals weren’t great, either. Sproat allowed 2.2 home runs and 11.3 hits per nine innings, both more than double his average in Double-A. He allowed an opponent slugging percentage of .574. Sproat struck out 11 batters per nine innings in both High-A and Double-A, but that number dipped all the way down to 6.59 in Triple-A. Through his first 22 starts with Syracuse (seven in 2024 and 15 in 2025), Sproat sported a pretty brutal 6.45 ERA.

And then, just like that, he figured things out. Starting in July 2025, Sproat started shoving like he had been in the lower minors. Through his last 11 starts in 2025, he recorded a 2.44 ERA while striking out batters a whopping 30% of the time.

Sproat was rewarded for his efforts with a September call-up, making his major-league debut just before his 25th birthday. He didn’t pitch incredibly well during his four appearances with the Mets but didn’t embarrass himself either. I’m inclined to agree with Baseball America, which said in their scouting report on Sproat that he “has all the ingredients to be a No. 4 starter or better, and he’s ready to assume that role in 2026.” He has talent to spare, with four pitches (a mid-80s sweeper, a high-70s curveball, a slider, and a 94-96 mph sinker) that all have the potential to be plus pitches at the major league level.

So, how can the Brewers’ pitching lab get the most out of Sproat?

Sproat has always been talented, but his success down the stretch came as a result of developing a more effective pitch mix. Milwaukee has had a ton of success with modifying and developing pitch selection, and Sproat has as much to work with as any pitcher the Brewers have had in recent years.

Sproat has used a combination of six different pitches — a sweeper, curveball, changeup, slider, fastball, and sinker — since becoming a member of the Mets organization. Below is his pitch chart over his first four career starts. As shown below, Sproat threw his sinker nearly twice as often as any other pitch. He deployed his sweeper, curveball, fastball, and changeup at roughly equal rates while barely using his slider. It’s an extremely limited sample size, but it does show us what the Mets thought an ideal pitch mix would be for Sproat.

His sinker was hit harder than any other pitch during his four starts in New York, even after accounting for higher volume. Sproat gave up a hit on nine of the 99, or 9.1%, of the sinkers that he threw, with three of those hits going for extra bases. His changeup (43 pitches, two hits) and sweeper (55 pitches, one hit) were each used less frequently than his sinker but proved very effective when utilized. Brewer Fanatic’s Jake McKibbin showed that the sinker and sweeper were ineffective against lefties, describing them as pretty much “neutralized.”

Sproat was only throwing his fastball 32% of the time, even in July. He gets solid velocity on his fastball, which can occasionally touch triple digits, but due to below-average shape (a lack of induced vertical break) his fastball hasn’t exactly been a put-out pitch thus far. Baseball America called it “pedestrian.”

The weird thing is that Sproat’s pitch chart with the Mets is almost the exact opposite of what it had been a year prior. Per a 2024 scouting report, Sproat’s best pitches were his fastball and his slider, the two pitches he threw the least as a Met. The fact that he only threw his four seamer 14% of the time in the big leagues probably doesn’t even mean it’s not a good pitch — it just means that without a good shape, it can’t be heavily featured without giving up hard contact. His fastball numbers were good as a Met, which may have because Sproat was reportedly able to slightly alter its shape sometime around… July.

Maybe the fastball is best as an ancillary offering, but I think Milwaukee sees a legitimate plus fastball waiting to be unlocked. Here’s former Brewer Josh Hader on the team’s pitching lab:

“With (pitching coaches) digging more into the lab, they’re starting to learn how pitches should spin to get optimal drop or movement. That’s one of the things we’ve been looking into with TrackMan, seeing how your ball rotates.”

Pretty much every scouting report on Sproat mentions that his fastball has a lot of potential but could use some work to induce further vertical break. That is exactly what the Brewers do. I’d bet that the Brewers will play with Sproat’s fastball until they find the right shape. Trevor Megill and Nick Mears both got hit around before arriving in Milwaukee, but both thrived once they leaned on their fastballs.

In a world where the Brewers are able to unlock his fastball, his ceiling seems to suddenly raise. Even if he doesn’t throw his fastball more than 30-35% of the time, he also has a few other pitches that are worth utilizing.

One of the reasons Sproat improved in July, per Baseball America, was that he began to throw changeups a lot more. His changeup recorded a 26% swinging-strike rate and a 71% groundball rate, with Baseball America noting that the pitch was “paramount” to his recent success. After his fastball, his changeup was his second-most used pitch against left-handed hitters in Triple-A. His curveball — which had a 41% whiff rate and a 32% chase rate in July — was the third-most frequently used.

For the sake of argument, let’s say the Brewers can’t get the sweeper and sinker — a pitch the Mets clearly believed in — to play better against left-handed hitters. If the Brewers can unlock his fastball, he’d have four pitches (fastball, curveball, slider, and changeup) that should all play well against lefties.

Can Sproat be the next Brewers pitching success story? Answer that for yourself. Sproat is an extremely talented prospect, but he’s still figuring out how to pitch to his strengths and fully harness his stuff. He couldn’t have come to a better organization.