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The past few seasons of Yankee baseball have produced a familiar pattern when it comes to closing games. The first option the team tabs to handle the ninth inning invariably falters, forcing Aaron Boone to thumb through his bullpen to find a suitable replacement, or for Brian Cashman to acquire one from elsewhere.

In 2022, Aroldis Chapman’s struggles led to Clay Holmes being installed as the closer. Holmes held the role until 2024, when a succession of blown saves forced Boone to replace him with Luke Weaver. Last offseason, the Yankees traded for Devin Williams in the hopes that they’d have more stability in the role, but Williams’ unreliability forced Cashman to bring in more outside help. That came in the form of Pirates All-Star David Bednar.

Bednar was the closer the Yankees needed to stabilize the bullpen and gave them an option they could feel confident about in 2025. The two-time All-Star was lights-out, performing better in New York than he did in Pittsburgh. But again, we’ve seen this movie before. The Yankees’ ninth-inning guys have performed well…right up until they haven’t. Can Bednar buck the trend and provide a full season of late-game reliability?

2025 statistics (between PIT & NYY): 64 games, 62.2 IP, 2.30 ERA, 2.18 FIP, 27 SV, 34.3 K%, 7.6 BB%, 2.0 fWAR

2026 Depth Charts projections: 65 games, 65 IP, 3.26 ERA, 3.26 FIP, 33 SV, 30.2 K%, 8.1 BB%, 1.3 fWAR

Reasons for concern do exist for Bednar despite his spectacular excellent 2025 season. After all, the Pittsburgh native began the year in Triple-A, and slogged through 2024 with an ERA well north of 5. But Bednar has faced plenty of adversity in his career already. A former 35th-round draft pick who used his myriad rejections from Division I schools to fuel his competitive fire, Bednar has been underestimated and doubted before.

The routine questions about whether Bednar had the makeup to succeed under the bright Yankee Stadium lights were assuaged when Bednar pitched to a 2.19 ERA with 10 saves after the trade. He finished all three games the Yankees won in their eventual far-too-short postseason run, allowing just one run over six total appearances.

Bednar boasts a strong three-pitch mix, but his success hinges on his ability to get ahead in the count and put hitters away with his curveball. He has a north-south attack, with his fastball working best up in the zone and changing eye levels to set up his curve and his split. Both pitches missed bats at an elite level last season. As a result he boasted a strikeout rate just outside the top-10 in baseball for pitchers who threw at least 50 innings.

FanGraphs projections don’t predict his strikeout rate to regress much from that elite clip, and similarly don’t forecast his walk rate to increase much from 7.6 percent, where it sat last year. Bednar proved to be less volatile with the free passes than Williams, and has only exceeded 10 percent once across a full season in his career, in 2024.

Despite that, there are still some indications—which I pointed out in his report card post last fall—that Bednar won’t perform quite at the same level in 2026. For one thing, Bednar’s strand rate with the Yankees was unsustainably high: 84.2 percent. That number is bound to regress at least a bit; otherwise we have another real Houdini on our hands. (Happy retirement, D-Rob!)

Second was the high volume of seemingly free strikes Bednar was receiving early in the count, as hitters’ approach towards him was oddly passive. He only saw a 62.9% in-zone swing rate on his pitches, a little more than four percentage points below league average. If teams get a bit more aggressive, might that play to their favor? Or will they overcompensate and become more vulnerable to chasing? That will be a dynamic to follow with number 53 this season.

Ultimately, even if he allows more of his baserunners to score and allows more loud contact, I don’t believe Bednar will suddenly turn into a pumpkin this season. Glancing at his percentile rankings year-over-year, it’s fairly obvious that 2024 was the outlier for him. He’s an excellent closer who got a good dose of big-game experience last year, has less overall risk in his profile than Williams’, and got a full offseason to get fully accustomed to his new digs. I expect the Renegade to have it made at the back of the Yankee bullpen in 2026.

See more of the Yankees Previews series here.

It’s prospects week here at Bleed Cubbie Blue as today I’m starting the countdown of my top 25 Cubs prospects for 2026. Each day we’re going to look at five new prospects until we get down to the top five on Friday.

The Cubs farm system is definitely down at the moment. It’s not the worst system in the majors nor is it the worst that I’ve seen in my nearly 20 years of doing this. (Where has the time gone?) There is a lot of talent in the system at the top. I’d say that while the top prospects definitely aren’t the best I’ve seen in the Cubs system (that would probably go to 2014, 2015 or 2024), it’s at least average and maybe a little better than that. The problem is that once you get past around the eighth-best prospect, things thin out really fast. While it’s always an issue that there normally isn’t any real difference between the prospects ranked three or four spots apart as you go down the system, this year there were several players that if you wanted to rank them ten spots lower or higher, I probably wouldn’t argue with you. After the eighth prospect, it’s either guys with low ceilings or injury issues or who just haven’t proven themselves as a professional yet. There are six recent 2025 draft picks in the top 25 and I’m pretty sure that’s a record for me. Four of them have yet to even make their professional debut. 

The good news is that the system is down for a lot of the right reasons. Over the past two seasons, Pete Crow-Armstrong, Cade Horton, Matt Shaw, Michael Busch, Ben Brown, Jordan Wicks, Daniel Palencia and others have left the farm system and become important contributors to the major league team. On top of that, the Cubs have traded away several very good prospects like Cam Smith, Zyhir Hope and others. I was left scrambling to find two more prospects to replace Owen Caissie and Cristian Hernandez, both of whom were traded to the Marlins for Edward Cabrera. There were other players who would have been in the top 25 this spring who were dealt at the trade deadline in July. 

The bad news is that in this situation, you hope that the minor leaguers who remain step up and distinguish themselves as top prospects to replenish the system. While there are a few who really did, not enough of them did. Some prospects who were expected to be top ten prospects this year took steps backwards, either because of injury or just poor performance as they went up a level. This is one reason why there are so many draft picks this year.

A third reason the system is down that is neither good nor bad is something I mentioned last season: the minor leagues are just down everywhere. In particular, the quality of pitching has been quite poor and it’s not just the Cubs’ system that is hitter-heavy. We can only speculate why that is, although I certainly think the elimination of one level of the minors plays a role. 

Another reason there are so many draft picks this year is because I simply don’t rank players who haven’t left the Dominican Summer League left. There are a few reasons for this, but the biggest one is I simply don’t have enough independent information to make my own evaluation. There isn’t much video and what there is tends to be two or three years out of date—when the player was 14 to 16 years old. But there are a few players down in the Dominican that I’m looking forward to seeing in the US this year and I hope that they’ll lift the system by this time next year. 

Other than that, to be considered for this list you have to still have prospect eligibility, which is defined as fewer than 130 at-bats, 50 innings pitched and less than 45 days on an active roster. Even though Moisés Ballesteros and Kevin Alcántara have played in the major leagues, they’re still eligible.

On a “we’re all getting older” note, I expect that Riley Martin will be my final ranked prospect whose birth year starts with a “19.”

As always, any mistakes here are my fault.

If you click on a player’s name, it will take you to his milb dot com page where you can get more statistical information. 

21. Tyler Schlaffer. RHP. DOB: 5/24/2001. 6’1”, 180. Drafted 9th round (2019) Homewood-Flossmoor High School (IL)

Schlaffer has been in the Cubs system a long time and is just starting to put things together now. Part of the reason for that is Tommy John surgery, which cost him the entire 2023 season. But Schlaffer put up the best season of his career in 2025 and finished the year with nine starts in Double-A Knoxville, where he went 4-2 with a 2.78 ERA.

Schlaffer’s pure stuff isn’t going to blow anyone away, but he does have five decent pitches that he mixes up well to keep hitters off balance. His fastball has average velocity in the 92-94 range, but its flat shape keeps it from being a better weapon. His best pitch is his low-80s changeup, which is a real weapon against lefties. He also has a slurvy curve ball which he can use as an out pitch when he’s locating it well. Schlaffer has a fringy slider and a sinker, although both pitches sometimes play better than that. Schlaffer does close to equally well against left- and right-handed hitting, so that versatility plays in his favor. 

The big issue with Schlaffer is his overall command and control, which abandons him at times. When it’s on, he can keep hitters guessing with a smart pitch miss, When it’s not, he ends up walking too many batters and leaving fat ones over the plate. Luckily last year, he was on more often than he was off. He will need to show more consistency in throwing strikes to be a major-league contributor. 

Schlaffer was “on” in June, when he went 3-0 with an 0.69 ERA and 27 strikeouts in 26 innings that earned him Midwest League Pitcher of the Month honors. It also got him promoted to Double-A Knoxville.

Schlaffer’s pedestrian pure stuff probably relegates him to being a back-of-the-rotation starter with a lot of relief risk. He should return to Knoxville this summer with a promotion to Iowa that could come sooner rather than later.

Here’s Schlaffer striking out ten batters for South Bend in June.

22. Riley Martin. LHP. DOB: 3/19/1998. 6’1”, 215”. Drafted 6th round (2021), Quincy (IL) University.

Martin is extremely likely to make his major league debut this year as the Cubs added him to the 40-man roster this past winter. He’s an odd left-handed reliever who has had consistent reverse-platoon stats throughout his professional career. 

Martin is a fastball-curve reliever, although he does have a slider and a change that he breaks out occasionally. The fastball comes in at 93-to-95 miles per hour and has decent movement on it. The curve is a real swing-and-miss pitch with mid-80s velocity and a sharp downward break. 

Martin repeated Triple-A Iowa last year and was one of the I-Cubs best relievers all year, going 6-2 with four saves and a 2.69 ERA. He struck out a whopping 80 batters in 63.2 innings last year and has consistently struck out more than a batter an inning throughout his career. As you probably expect, he does have issues with control with 35 walks. However, that marked an improvement over his previous years. If he can make a similar jump forward this year, Martin could end up being a real weapon in a major league bullpen.

Martin is likely to start the season in Iowa again, but with his 40-man status, he’s going to get his chance at the majors as soon as an injury opens up a spot for him. If he can seize that opportunity, he could have a decent career as a major league left-handed middle reliever.

Here are some Martin highlights from early last season.

23.  Nick Dean. RHP. DOB: 12/26/2000. 6’3”, 180. Drafted 19th round (2023). Maryland.

If you look at Dean’s 2025 season, you might question why he’s on this list, beyond the fact that the system starts to get thin around here. Between South Bend and Knoxville, Dean went 1-7 with an ERA of 5.43 over 15 starts. The Cubs even took him off the roster at one point and put him on the development list so he could work on straightening things out in a lower-stress environment. 

But Dean’s strikeout and walk totals speak of a starting pitcher who can control the strike zone. Last year, Dean struck out a solid 27.4 percent of batters last year between the two levels and walked an impressive 6.9 percent. Yes, Dean gave up too much hard contact and too many home runs. But his overall command of the strike zone gives the Cubs something to work with here.

Dean’s fastball is a pretty pedestrian 89-91 miles per hour with decent break, although not a lot of deception. However, it plays better than it might otherwise because of a low-80s “Bugs Bunny” changeup that grades out as plus. Dean also mixes in a fringy curve and a fringy slider. 

With only one pitch grading out as even average, Dean’s upside is limited. But he throws strikes and has that changeup going for him, so he certainly could carve out a role for himself as a back-of-the-rotation starter. More likely, he’s an up-and-down sixth starter.

Dean will likely return to Knoxville to start the season. Should he find a way to limit the hard contact, he should see Iowa sometime midseason. 

Here’s Dean striking out three batters in South Bend.

24. Dominick Reid. RHP. 6’3”, 201. 11/28/2003. Drafted 3rd Round (2025) Abilene Christian.

The Cubs’ third-round pick from last summer’s draft hasn’t made his professional debut yet and I try to be a bit conservative when grading players who haven’t hit a minor league diamond yet. That practice has gone a bit out the window this year, but I still think that Reid’s ranking here is perhaps overly conservative but fair.  

Reid spent two seasons (barely) pitching out of the bullpen at Oklahoma State before transferring to Abilene Christian for his junior year. He made 15 starts for the Wildcats (yes, I had to look that up) and went 6-3 with a 3.26 ERA. More impressively, he struck out 112 batters and walked just 27 over 88.1 innings. That was enough to get the Cubs to take Reid in the third round and hand him a nearly $650k signing bonus. 

Reid’s best pitch is his changeup that comes in at 82-to-84 miles per hour and provides an excellent contrast to his average 91-95 mph fastball. He also has a low-80s slider and an upper-70s curve. He has at least average control on all four pitches.

Beyond that strong changeup, a lot of the appeal of Reid is the belief that he hasn’t maxed out his potential. Reid is a big right-hander without a lot of college experience. He might be able to add a few more miles onto his fastball with some tweaks. He’s also going to need to improve either his curve or his slider if he wants to stay a starting pitcher, but he could probably have a career as a reliever with just that changeup. 

As the Cubs are wont to do, they shut down Reid after drafting him last summer. He should make his professional debut this spring. Myrtle Beach is the most likely starting spot for him, but depending on how much progress the Cubs feel he’s made over the past six months, he could start in Mesa or South Bend. Reid is a project, but one that could pay off with a back-end starter somewhere down the line.

Here’s every pitch Reid threw in a game for Abilene Christian last year.

25. Kaleb Wing. RHP. 6’2”, 180. DOB: 1/12/2007. Drafted 4th round (2025), Scotts Valley HS (CA)

Wing is a lanky right-hander who recently converted to pitching. Wing is a four-pitch pitcher with a whip-like delivery. His fastball sits 92-to-93 miles per hour with good arm-side ride, but it has touched 95 at times. I suspect that the Cubs believe that he can hit that velocity consistently with more experience and maybe some added weight. 

Wing’s primary secondary pitch is an upper-70s changeup that mimics the movement of his fastball, except with a much greater vertical drop. He also has a big, loopy, knee-buckling curveball that could be plus if he learns to locate it with any consistency. Wing’s low-80s slider is a work in progress, but it does have some horizontal cut to it. 

Wing was a shortstop before converting to pitching, and that athleticism and experience helps him field his position well. That’s not something we mention often for pitching prospects, but it can make a difference.

One thing that stands out as a possible negative on Wing is his body, which is wiry to say the least. Some observers think there’s some room on his frame to add some muscle and others aren’t so sure. But there is some question as to whether his body can withstand the rigors of starting every fifth day as a professional. Certainly there’s always a relief risk with a young pitcher, but there may be more relief risk than normal. But on pure stuff, he could be a number-four starter. 

Fun fact: Kaleb’s father Ryan was a second-round pick of the White Sox and made it as high as Triple-A. 

The Cubs took Wing in the fourth round last year and signed him away from Loyola Marymount for $1.5 million, which is second-round money. Like nearly every newly-drafted pitcher, the Cubs shut him down for the rest of the year, so he hasn’t made his professional debut this year. Depending on how much progress he made on the backfields of Mesa last fall, he could make his pro debut in the Complex League or Myrtle Beach. But clearly the goal is to get him to Myrtle Beach some time this year.  

Here’s Wing pitching in a showcase game last year:

Tomorrow: Prospects 16 through 20.

We’re trying a new series at Royals Review, a daily mid-day question of the day to hear about your opinions on a fun or pressing question affecting the Royals or baseball in general. Chime in and drop your answers below!

Have the Royals done enough this offseason to upgrade the roster and get back to contention? Perhaps, although it sounds like J.J. Picollo still wants to do more to improve this team, particularly in the outfield and bullpen. Has it been a perfect offseason? Assuredly, no.

With the benefit of hindsight, we can pine over those deals that perhaps could have helped the Royals. What would you have done? What is a move from another team that you wish the Royals would have done? Or perhaps there’s a deal that wasn’t executed you think could have benefitted the Royals (try to refrain from the unreasonable “Jonathan India-for-Jarren Duran” trade ideas, we’re not Yankees fans!)

Here is a list of free agents who have signed so far this offseason or you can use the transaction tracker at FanGraphs. What move do you think the Royals should have made?

The story need not be repeated. You are already familiar with the tale of Alec Bohm’s irritated mutterings, and the camera that caught them, the ensuing apology and appreciative ovation that followed. This article is not going to be about that. It’s not going to be about the psychology of being an athlete in the spotlight or the sociology of fandom. It’s going to be about meteorology, and why it might give Bohm good reason to dislike playing at Citizens Bank Park.

Backing up for a moment: earlier this week, wanting to take a walk but not being able to stroll through the streets of beautiful Philadelphia on account of the snow, ice, and my own general clumsiness, I was instead taking a stroll through Baseball Savant. This sort of wandering does not offer the charm of birdsong, old buildings, or conversations with strangers that more traditional flâneuring does, but it does offer the opportunity to notice something odd or eye-catching on the page of one Phillie or another. On this occasion, I noticed that Alec Bohm’s performance at the plate on the road had been better than his performance at Citizens Bank Park for each of the past three seasons.

Those differences aren’t huge. And it’s worth noting that he was better at home than on the road in 2021 and 2022. Nevertheless, I was stuck at home, and, in truth, in need of something to write about. So I decided to poke around a little more, just in case those small differences were hiding something interesting.

There isn’t an immediately obvious reason to suspect that calling CBP home may be a negative for Bohm. It is a better park for lefties than for righties, but that has more to do with dimensions that are exceptionally conducive for lefties to hit home runs than any sort of hostility to the non-sinisters. Per Statcast’s park factors, the Bank plays as neutral for right-handed hitters. That being said, there is something unusual about CBP.

Over at MLB.com, Mike Petriello recently wrote an interesting article about how Kyle Tucker’s performance as a Cub had been dramatically better when outside the (apparently not-so-) Friendly Confines of Wrigley. This was, in part, due to the brutal breezes of the Windy City. That got me wondering if, perhaps, Bohm’s superior performance on the road over the past three seasons might be influenced by the winds. Though Citizens Bank Park doesn’t have Wrigley’s reputation for weather-related chaos, it is a sufficiently breezy place. The wind at CBP tends to rob players of homers, to a greater degree than most stadiums league-wide. That may come as a bit of a surprise, given that (again per Statcast) CBP has been more homer-happy than all but a trio of other stadiums (Dodger Stadium, Great American Ballpark, Yankee Stadium and her horizontally-challenged right field porch) over the past three years. But these facts can coexist happily; it simply means that CBP would be even more conducive to round-trippers were it not for the wind.

So I decided to look at how Alec Bohm performs against the wind, with his fellow righties added in for comparison.

Here’s how all the Phillies righties (min 250 PA) did, 2021-2025, when the wind was blowing in vs. when the wind was blowing out, since 2021 (appearances as a Phillie only). For the moment, we’re looking at overall performance, without home/road splits.

Bohm does better when the wind is blowing out versus when it’s blowing in, and that makes sense: wind blows out, ball travels farther, batter does better (Oddly, J.T. Realmuto does significantly worse when the wind is blowing out— but that’s a question for another time). What’s unusual here is how much better Bohm does when the wind is blowing out. wRC+ is standardized so that 100 is average, and each point above or below 100 indicates being one percent better or worse than average. When the wind is blowing in, Bohm is a significantly below-average hitter. When it’s blowing out, he’s above-average. He’s 53% better when the wind is in his favor. That’s enormous. I won’t bore you with the full chart, but suffice it to say Bohm’s gap between wind-out and wind-in performance is by far the largest of any current Phillie.

Now let’s look at the combination of wind splits and home/road splits.

Here’s the same chart, but only for plate appearances at CBP:

And here’s only plate appearances away from CBP:

Bohm performs better with the wind blowing out than with the wind blowing in at home and on the road, but the gap at CBP is 4.6 times as big as the gap on the road. When the wind is blowing in at CBP, Bohm’s wRC+ is a truly dismal 37. For what it’s worth, that puts Bohm at 397th of 407 players (min 7o PA) for performance at home with the wind blowing in. I have a feeling that statistic is a little too finely sliced to be all that meaningful, but it does illustrate just how rough Bohm’s performance under those conditions has been.

So we know that Bohm struggles, and struggles severely, when the wind is blowing towards him at home. Much more so than his teammates. As further evidence of this, take a look at his Batting Average on Balls in Play (2021-Present) broken out by wind in/out and home/road. The gap between his performance with the wind out and the wind in is twice as big at home than it is on the road.

But why? Is there something about Bohm’s performance at the plate that sets him apart from his teammates, and makes his batted balls particularly vulnerable to the impact of wind blowing in at home?

My first thought is that it might have something to do with the direction Bohm hits the ball. Bohm is disproportionately likely to hit the ball straight. Last season, 47.4 % of his batted balls went right back up the middle, putting him at #1 league-wide; the MLB average was 36.4% . It would stand to reason that a player who is especially likely to hit the ball up the middle would be especially vulnerable to the impact of wind blowing right back down the middle. But upon further investigation, I don’t think that explanation holds up. That 47.4% figure combines all types of batted balls. If we look only at batted balls in the air, Bohm is slightly more likely than average to hit them straight, but not to a huge degree. And he’s also less likely than average to hit the ball in the air at all. His exceedingly high percentage of batted balls up the middle is mostly the result of him hitting a lot of grounders straight, and I don’t see much reason to believe that the wind would have a large impact on those. On top of that, Bohm was more likely than average to hit the ball straight in the 2021 and 2022 seasons where his performance at home outstripped his performance on the road.

At this point, I have to consider the possibility that this may all be illusion. When you’re slicing up statistics with by using multiple splits, you’re looking at relatively small sample sizes. And small sample sizes produce odd results that often turn out to be nothing more than chance. There’s a statistical concept called p-hacking, which means looking at comparisons until you find one that, by pure chance, happens to seem significant, then reporting it as if it really means something. The fact is that Bohm’s superior performance on the road has only been the case for three seasons, and he produced the opposite splits in the two seasons to that. This could be nothing more than small sample size, and I might be putting a Phillies P in p-hacking.

But there is one more thing I want to look at before I wrap up. There’s another way that Bohm differs from all of his teammates— from nearly all of MLB. His swing. His attack angle (per Statcast, the “vertical angle at which sweet spot is traveling at the point of impact”) is 5°, which is exceedingly low. The average across MLB is 10°, and only 12 qualified batters had a lower attack angle than Bohm in 2025. On top of that, Bohm’s attack angle seems to have dropped over the past few seasons, going from 7° in 2023, to 6° in 2024, to the aforementioned 5°. Unfortunately, Statcast only started recording bat tracking data in 2023, so we can’t confirm that the pattern stretches back to 2021. Is it possible that the angle at which Bohm swings makes his batted balls particularly vulnerable to the winds at CBP? And is it possible that the change in Home/Road splits he experienced was the result of his attack angle declining?

I don’t quite have the data or expertise needed to check on that. And even if I did, there’s a good chance that I’m entirely off-base there. We’ll learn more as time passes. Perhaps Bohm’s performance with the wind at home will stay on the current trajectory. Or perhaps he’ll start hitting better at home, buffeted by the winds of change.

A native of Markham, Ontario, Canada, Jonah Tong grew up in a family of athletes. His skill at baseball quickly became apparent, but given that the family lived in Ontario, there was a distinct lack of opportunities for him to learn, grow, and highlight his skills to professional scouts and evaluators. A student at Bill Crothers Secondary School in Markham, he transferred to the Georgia Premier Academy for his senior season in 2022.

Tong had a commitment to North Dakota State University but ended up signing with the Mets after they drafted him in the seventh round of the 2022 MLB Draft and offered him a $225,800 signing bonus, exactly slot value. He did not pitch in 2022 and his 2023 season got off to a late start when the Mets initially held him out from organized games until late June. Assigned to the FCL Mets, the 20-year-old finally made his professional debut on June 30. He made 7 appearances for the team, pitching roughly once a week, and threw a total of 12.2 innings, allowing 9 earned runs, giving up 9 hits, walking 13, and striking out 25. He was promoted to Single-A St. Lucie at the end of August and made three appearances with them, allowing 5 earned runs in 8.1 innings, allowing 8 hits, walking 9, and striking out 13. All in all, it was a forgettable first year as a professional, Tong posted a 6.00 ERA in 21.0 innings over 10 games, allowing 17 hits, walking 22, and striking out 38. Despite the poor results, data collected from his pitches showed that the young right-hander was exceptionally talented as a pitcher, and that he had major potential.

That off-season, seeking to improve his control, Tong adopted a new mentality of not attempting to fine-tune his pitch placement. He also added a new slider to his pitching repertoire, seeking to add a pitch to his arsenal to be a middle-ground bridge between his overhand fastball and his big 12-6 curveball. When the 2024 season began, the changes to his mentality and repertoire were immediately apparent. Assigned to the St. Lucie Mets, he went unscored for 18.2 innings, scattering just 7 hits, giving up 5 unintentional walks, and striking out 36 of the 68 total batters he faced. He was promoted to High-A Brooklyn at the beginning of May, and while he had his share of growing pains there, he added his name to the annals of great Brooklyn Cyclone pitchers, posting a 3.71 ERA in 85.0 innings with 74 hits allowed, 38 walks, and 110 strikeouts. He was promoted to Double-A Binghamton at the beginning of September and ended his season just as strong as he started it, allowing 3 earned runs in 9.1 innings with 4 hits, 4 walks, and 14 strikeouts. In 113.0 cumulative innings between Single-A, High-A, and Double-A, he posted a 3.03 ERA with 85 hits allowed, 47 walks, and 160 strikeouts, the most of any Mets minor leaguer in 2024.

Ranked as the Mets’ 4th top prospect coming into the season, the 22-year-old quickly picked up where he left off when the season began. The right-hander needed a few weeks to get his pitching legs under him, but by the end of April, he embarked on a magical season, the kind where any start was liable to be a no-hitter (and twice, Tong threw six or more no-hit innings). By the time the organization promoted him to Triple-A Syracuse, the right-hander had a 1.59 ERA in 102.0 innings with the Rumble Ponies with 50 hits allowed, 44 walks, and 162 strikeouts. Tong dominated Double-A hitters and it quickly became apparent that Triple-A hitters would stand no chance against him. In two starts with the Syracuse Mets, Tong threw 11.2 innings and did not allow a run, scattering 8 hots, walking 3, and striking out 17.

On August 26, Carlos Mendoza and David Stearns announced that the 22-year-old would be called up to the Mets, joining the recently promoted Nolan McLean, citing how dominant the right-hander had been and how he had exceeded all expectations set for him. On August 29, he made his first major league start, facing the Miami Marlins. The right-hander allowed one earned run over five innings, scattering 6 hits, walking 0, and striking out 6. That was the high-water mark for Tong in his late-season cup-of-coffee. Heralded as a savior for a floundering, moribund team, Tong simply was not up to the task, highlighting that beneath it all, he was still just a fallible 22-year-old kid. In his next four starts against the Cincinnati Reds, Texas Rangers, San Diego Padres, and Chicago Cubs, Tong posted a 9.88 ERA in 13.2 innings, allowing 18 hits, walking 9, and striking out 16. In those games, there were flashes of brilliance but not enough to be the change the Mets needed. In the end, Tong posted a 7.71 ERA in 18.2 innings in Queens, allowing 24 hits, walking 9, and striking out 22. With Binghamton and Syracuse combined, the 22-year-old posted a combined 1.43 ERA in 113.2 innings, allowing 58 hits, walking 47, and striking out 179, and was named Minor League Pitcher of the Year by various baseball outlets. His 162 strikeouts with Binghamton set a Rumble Ponies record and were the most by a Binghamton player since Jesus Sanchez struck out 176 batters in 165.1 innings in 1997; his strikeout total is third in Binghamton franchise history, behind the aforementioned Sanchez and Bill Pulsipher, who struck out 171 in 201.0 innings in 1993.

Tong throws from a high-three-quarters arm slot, standing from the far third base side of the rubber. As he pushes and drives off of the mound, extending 6.8’, his torso rotates towards first base, effectively raising his arm slot; the 64-degree arm angle that Tong throws from was third only to San Diego Padres right-hander Jeremiah Estrada and his 66-degree arm angle and Los Angeles Dodgers left-hander Alex Vesia and his 65-degree arm angle. Between his lithe stature, the long stride and extension off the mound, and the near over-the-top release point, his mechanics are reminiscent of Tim Lincecum. The similarities are more than just coincidence, as Tong modeled his pitching mechanics after the two-time Cy Young Award winner. While the violence in his delivery contributed, to one degree or another, to the hip and back issues that ultimately ended his career, Tong’s mechanics are not as violent as Lincecum’s were, and his 6’1”, 180-pound frame is able to ergonomically carry the kinetic energy produced by his pitching motions better than the 5’11”, 170-pound Freak.

Tong has a full four pitch repertoire consisting of a four-seam fastball, curveball, slider, and changeup. In his five-game sample size with the Mets, he threw his four-seam fastball 57% of the time, his changeup 28% of the time, his curveball 12% of the time, and his slider 3% of the time. His slider was recently incorporated into his arsenal in 2024 and his changeup revamped in 2025.

His four-seam fastball sits in the mid-90s, ranging 92-98 MPH, averaging 95 MPH, improved as compared to 2024, when the pitch sat in the low-to-mid-90s. While the pitch’s 2270 RPM spin rate is roughly average for a four-seam fastball, it was devastatingly effective in the minor leagues and extremely effective at the major league level as well. With a spin efficiency of 99% at a 12:30 spin axis, Tong was able to generate 19 inches of induced vertical break from those 2270 RPM, putting him in the top 1%. Additionally, the 3.5 inches of natural cut put the pitch in the top 10% among four-seam fastballs as well. In his limited major league innings, the pitch resulted in a 17% Whiff%, and when thrown upstairs, a 38.2% Whiff%.

During the 2024 off-season, Tong developed a new grip for his changeup, a pitch that he used sparingly as compared to his slider and curveball and mainly to neutralize left-handers. Now using not just a Vulcan grip, but a modified two-seam Vulcan grip as opposed to the ordinary four-seam Vulcan grip, Tong unlocked a pitch that quickly ascended and has become his best secondary pitch. Sitting in the mid-80s, the pitch averages 1700 RPM with a 99% spin efficiency from a 1:45 spin axis. This gives his changeup roughly 28.5 inches of vertical drop and 14 inches of horizontal arm-side movement, the latter number atypical for a changeup coming from an arm slot as high as Tong’s. The right-hander does not telegraph the pitch by maintaining his arm speed and maintained a 22.2% Whiff% with the pitch in the limited MLB innings that he threw in 2025.

His curveball sits in the mid-to-high-70s, ranging 75-79 MPH and averaging 77.5 MPH. Averaging a spin rate of 2,600 RPM with an 81% active spin percentage and enhanced by his release point, the pitch saw a whopping 62.7” of vertical drop, making it a massive 12-6 bender. While the optics of the pitch are impressive, it doesn’t have much bite to it and is not so much a strikeout pitch as it is a change-of-pace offering or a strike stealer, dropping into the zone for a called strike. Tong throws it about equally to left-handers and right-handers, and it has been slightly more effective against left-handers than right-handers.

His slider, which was developed over the 2023 off-season, was a weapon for the right-hander during the 2024 season but was less effective and used more sparingly in 2025. In 2024, when it was at its best, the mid-to-high-80s pitch featured hard, gyroscopic break that was almost cutter-like in its sudden horizontal slice with roughly 34 inches of vertical movement and 5.7 inches of glove-side horizontal movement. In his limited major league innings, Tong barely used the pitch, but when he did use it in the minors in 2024 and 2025, it is used as an east-west weapon to use against batters for swings-and-misses and a bridge his fastball and curve.

Tong’s control is leagues better than it was when he was drafted, but he can still have bouts of command problems and have trouble hitting the strike zone. He maintained a 16.3% line drive rate, 52.9% groundball rate, and 30.8% flyball rate over the course of his time in Binghamton and Syracuse and a 25.0% line drive rate, 37.5% flyball rate, and 37.5% groundball rate in his limited major league innings. He was hit harder at the major league level, but his propensity for keeping the ball on the ground and limiting damage combined with his high-octane strikeout stuff is why he was the 2025 MiLB Pitcher of the Year and why he has legitimate top of the rotation potential.

In this episode of the Royals Rundown Podcast, Jeremy “Hokius” Greco is joined by Royals Review Managing Editor Max Rieper to go over a hodgepodge of baseball news ahead of Spring Training.

They touch on a few trade ideas for the Royals both before the season starts and perhaps at the deadline. They also remind everyone that the Royals are making it free to go to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum all month long! Is the WBC in trouble after banning players at or over the age of 37 from participating this year? Which Non-Roster Invitees have a real chance to impact the Royals roster in 2026? And finally, who will be in the Royals’ Opening Day rotation and what will they do with some of the guys who miss?

Email Jacob directly at: jm17971047@gmail.com

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– Jeremy Greco: @hokius.fromthehawkseye.com
– Jacob Milham: @jacobmilhkc.bsky.social

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