Worldwide Sports News

Here's the latest on some of the Mets' top young talent in the early stages of the minor league season...

Jett the Met surging early

Jett Williams has picked up right where he left off following his strong showing in big-league camp -- reaching base safely in all but one of Binghamton’s games thus far this season. 

The 21-year-old played a huge role during the Rumble Ponies doubleheader split on Friday afternoon, as he lined a single in the second during Game 1 and then cracked a three-run homer a few innings later. 

Then in Game 2, he led off the bottom of the first with a single and swiped his first stolen base of the season before coming around to score on a Nick Lorusso long ball. 

Williams has struck out seven times over the first six games -- but he’s also drawn a pair of walks while putting together two doubles, a home run, and an impressive .348 on-base percentage. 

He was plagued by the injuries last season, so a return to form would help continue his quick rise through the system. 

Gilbert begins rehab assignment 

The Mets played things safe with Drew Gilbert during spring training after he missed significant time last year due to a hamstring issue -- but he’s officially back on the field as the minor league season gets underway. 

The youngster is beginning things on a rehab assignment with the St. Lucie Mets, and he’s gotten off to a surging start at the plate. 

Gilbert has reached base safely two or more times in each of the past three games and he’s left the yard on back-to-back nights -- giving him an impressive .350 average and 1.135 OPS through 20 at-bats. 

While those type of numbers are expected from a 24-year-old playing down two levels, it’s certainly encouraging to see him get off to this type of start after the sluggish and injury-plagued campaign he had. 

Like Williams, a return to form would go a long way towards Gilbert making his big-league debut.

To this point he’s logged appearances in all three outfield positions, but two of them have come in center field -- a spot he could potentially provide a significant boost to in the majors later this season. 

McNeil 1B + Alvarez BB + Gilbert 3R HR = 3-1 Mets lead! This is a good trio! pic.twitter.com/JEsD9GLiOW

— St. Lucie Mets (@stluciemets) April 11, 2025

Serrano a sleeper? 

If you don’t already know Eli Serrano III, you may want to start getting familiar with him.

Serrano landed with the organization in the fourth round of last year’s draft -- and he was widely praised for the strong offensive skillset that he displayed during his time at NC State. 

The 21-year-old showcased that in a very small sample size towards the end of last year, compiling seven extra base-hits in 17 games as he made his pro ball debut with the St. Lucie Mets. 

He was bumped up to High-A Brooklyn to begin this year -- and he’s been able to carryover that production on both sides of the ball thus far. 

Serrano has a double, two homers, three stolen bases, seven walks, eight hits, a .457 on-base percentage, and an incredible 1.013 OPS through six games. He also gunned down a runner at the plate with a tremendous throw from center and made a pair of leaping catches at the fence in left.

He comes into the year as the 22nd prospect in the system according to SNY’s Joe DeMayo, but will certainly climb up those rankings quickly if he’s able to keep this up. 

Zuber building off strong spring

 Tyler Zuber certainly looked the part of a big leaguer during spring training. 

The right-handed reliever walked four batters but he did well to limit the damage, allowing just one run while striking out six across 7.2 innings of work. 

Thus far he’s been able to carry that success over to Triple-A Syracuse -- bringing his ERA down to a strong mark of 2.08 ERA across four appearances after putting together a scoreless frame on Thursday.

He’s allowed just one run and two hits while walking one, striking out three, and generating eight groundball outs. 

The 29-year-old struggled in the minors following a trade deadline deal with the Rays, but after spending a full offseason working with the Mets’ pitching lab, he appears ready to contribute at the big-league level. 

There aren’t any openings in the Mets’ bullpen at the moment, but if Zuber can keep this rolling his opportunity may come before you know it.

The Matt Allan comeback tour continues. 

The hard-throwing right-hander was back on the mound for the St. Lucie Mets on Saturday night, and he looked very strong again -- allowing just two hits and striking out three across 3.2 scoreless innings of work.

Allan hit the second batter he faced in the bottom of the first and allowed a stolen base, but he quickly retired the next two on just six pitches to strand the man in scoring position.

He picked up his first punch out of the evening to finish a perfect second, and then worked around a one out double in the third, before finishing his outing with a man on first and two outs in the fourth.

Allan threw just three more pitches than last time (47) and he topped out at 96 mph.

The 23-year-old former top prospect has now racked up eight strikeouts and 7.1 scoreless innings of work over his first two appearances since returning from a six-year absence due to numerous different arm injuries.

The organization plans on taking things slowly with him this year to keep him healthy. But if he continues pitching like this, there’s no reason that he won’t take the next step in his journey soon enough.

“Given everything Matt’s gone through, every time he takes the ball we’re happy,” David Stearns said last week. “He deserves to be happy and he deserves to enjoy it. Let’s get to the next outing and then after that let’s get to the next one and we’ll go from there.

“What I will say is what he is doing right now is really impressive -- he is demonstrating why he was so sought after in the draft, and why he has kept pushing so hard for the last five years to get back to this point.”

Sproat bounces back

Top pitching prospect Brandon Sproat has had a rough time in Triple-A thus far -- but on Saturday night he put together easily his best effort.

The right-hander used his full arsenal as he struck out six while allowing just two hits and two walks across 4.1 innings of one-run ball.

Sproat is now down to a 4.35 ERA through three starts this season.

The Mets will look for him to be a bit more efficient before they are ready for him to make the leap up to the big-league level, but Saturday's outing was certainly a step in the right direction.

On a day that the Yankees lost a rotation piece for a few weeks, they can breathe a sigh of relief after Will Warren pitched arguably his best game as a big leaguer on Saturday.

Against a formidable Giants team, Warren allowed just two runs on two hits and two walks in five innings pitched en route to his first major league win.

"Big accomplishment. Waiting a while to get that one off the table," Warren said after the game. "So fun. I'm just glad the team won."

Saturday was Warren's eighth start of his career, and the third this season, but the 25-year-old can finally say he has a big league win under his belt. Not bad for a pitcher who was not pegged to make the team out of spring training.

Of course, injuries to Gerrit Cole, Luis Gil and Clarke Schmidt helped facilitate Warren breaking camp with the team, but a strong spring made him the perfect candidate to start the year with the team and he's been solid since earning the spot. Of his three starts this year, two of them saw him give up two runs or fewer. And for Saturday, it was especially important for Warren to give the Yankees a good outing after Marcus Stroman was unable to pitch out of the first inning and manager Aaron Boone had to burn a few relievers in their loss on Friday. But the Yankees skipper was more impressed with how he pitched instead of how long.

"I'm really excited for him. Just did a good job mixing his pitches, for the most part dictating counts," Boone said. "I felt like he had a lot of ahead-in-the-count. I thought he had a lot of useful pitches throughout, even when he was ahead. And then a couple situations where he really had to make a pitch. He did it."

The only blemish to Warren's day was in the second inning when Heliot Ramos smoked a double and Wilmer Flores followed with a two-run home run to give up the Yankees' early lead. Both Warren and Boone felt the elements helped the Giants in that area a bit but after Flores' home run, Warren settled in nicely.

Warren would retire the next 10 batters in a row and 11 of his final 12. The young right-hander credited Austin Wells and the game plan for his outing, while Boone points to Warren's execution of his pitches as a big reason for the win.

"Overall, I just thought the slider was good," Boone said. "I thought there was a little more life to the sinker and I thought he did a good job of mixing his sinker with his four seamer too."

It's a great story for a pitcher who was thrust into the rotation last year due to injuries and didn't execute. In six games (five starts) in 2024, Warren allowed four or more runs four times. He pitched to a 10.32 ERA and a 1.90 WHIP.

But that experience makes this season and his first win mean even more.

"Learned a lot, been through a lot of tough outings but I think, that's what makes this one even sweeter," Warren said. "You learn from it, move on and try to get better each day." 

Warren added, "There's a lot of guys in this clubhouse you lean on and learn from, as well as breaking down each outing every week. I don't know how much better I've gotten. I think it's still the same. I think it's the process of knowing what to do, when to do and executing it."

The Yankees hope Warren's first major league win leads to much more. With Stroman being placed on the IL, Warren -- who could have potentially be demoted to make room for the returning Schmidt -- will be in the rotation to stay, at least for now.

The Mets’ offense has gotten off to a slow start this season. 

Other than Pete Alonso, who has been their biggest catalyst to this point, New York hasn’t been able to get much going consistently and it’s mainly been carried by its dominant early-season pitching.

Francisco Lindor has shown some positive signs but he doesn’t look like himself. Juan Soto has been his usual on-base machine, but he isn’t hitting for much power. Brandon Nimmo is starting to turn things around, and Mark Vientos is struggling mightily.

This team has been generating a ton of opportunities, but it simply hasn’t been able to come up with that big hit when it’s needed it the most -- like it did so often during last year’s run to the NLCS.

That was again the case in Saturday afternoon’s loss to the Athletics.

Left-hander David Peterson threw well but he was outdone by former Mets prospect J.T. Ginn who limited them to just one run on four hits while walking two and striking out six across 5.1 innings of work.

“Man, he was really good,” Carlos Mendoza said. “He was effective. The movement on his pitches was unbelievable today. That sinker was really good then the cutter, nothing was straight -- everything was in to righties then away, same to lefties.

“He made some big pitches when he needed to. We created a little bit of traffic on the bases, but we couldn’t string together a rally. He was really, really good today.”

New York's lone run came on a Nimmo homer and it left eight men on base, finishing an ugly 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position.

That marked the ninth time through 14 games that the Mets have finished with three runs or fewer scored -- and they haven’t exactly faced some big-time pitching aside from Sandy Alcantara and the opening series in Houston.

While times are tough, the skipper remains confident that they’ll break through soon.

“We have too many good hitters in that lineup not to,” he said. “Right now, we have Pete being the one who is pretty much carrying us -- but the fact that we are creating traffic and we’re getting guy on-base, they’ll step up.

“I like Nimmo’s at-bat, Vientos is just not getting results but he continues to hit the ball hard and he’s not chasing which is a good sign -- like I said, one through nine, we have a good offense and they’ll come through.”

The hope is that it'll start in Sunday's series finale against old friend Luis Severino.

The Mets (9-5) were defeated by the Athletics 3-1 on Saturday afternoon at Sutter Health Park.

Here are some takeaways...

- David Peterson took the mound after leaving his last outing with a stomach issue, and he got off to a terrific start. The lefty retired the first six batters before Luis Urias led off the third with a hit -- but he was quickly erased on a pickoff and Brett Baty made a terrific diving stop to escape the inning facing the minimum.

Then, Peterson's issues the second time through the order resurfaced. Jacob Wilson led off the inning with a double and scored the first run of the game on a Tyler Soderstrom knock. After another run scored on a fielder's choice with the bases loaded, Peterson was able to limit the damage thanks to a groundout.

He bounced back nicely in the fifth, working around a two out double, and then was helped out by a Hayden Senger caught stealing to finish his day strong. Peterson put together his second quality start of the year, allowing just two runs on seven hits while striking out five and issuing no walks.

- The Mets were unable to get to right-hander J.T. Ginn over the first five innings, but then Brandon Nimmo demolished a solo homer to deep right field leading off the sixth. Nimmo has gotten off to a bit of a slow start, but he's now gone deep in back-to-back games, giving him four on the year.

- Other than that, Ginn threw extremely well against the team that selected him back in the second round of the 2020 Draft. The 25-year-old right-hander worked around baserunners in numerous innings but allowed just one run on four hits and two walks while striking out six in 5.1 innings of work.

- Jose Butto allowed a run in the seventh to increase the deficit to two, and the Mets were unable to get to the Athletics' high-powered backend arms -- Tyler Ferguson and Mason Miller, who touched 103 mph as he secured his fourth save of the season.

- Francisco Lindor, Juan Soto and Pete Alonso walked three times, but went a combined 0-for-9 on the day.

- Baty enjoyed a strong day out at second base and he also came up with a much-needed base hit, lining a single in the fourth. The youngster has been losing out on more and more playing time as he's been stuck in a brutal rut at the plate, going 4-for-30 with 12 strikeouts.

- Jose Siri was forced out of the game after fouling a ball off his lower left leg on the first pitch of his first at-bat in the top of the second. Tyrone Taylor took over in his place, and the team said shortly after that he is day-to-day with a shin contusion.

Game MVP: J.T. Ginn

The youngster was certainly fired up to face the organization that traded him, and he held them to just one run.

Highlights

Two strikeouts for David Peterson in the first inning 👏 pic.twitter.com/3VflNB77zP

— SNY (@SNYtv) April 12, 2025

Jose Siri goes down in pain after fouling a ball off his leg pic.twitter.com/8n1NdaoLTY

— SNY (@SNYtv) April 12, 2025

David Peterson gets his first pickoff of the season for the second out! pic.twitter.com/tRrpgn5OLE

— SNY (@SNYtv) April 12, 2025

BRANDON NIMMO SOLO HOMER! 💣 pic.twitter.com/f4xWYRLDy7

— SNY (@SNYtv) April 12, 2025

Whats next

Kodai Senga (1-1, 1.80 ERA) takes the ball against old friend Luis Severino (0-2, 4.74 ERA) in the rubber game on Sunday at 4:05 p.m.