The New York Mets are using an impressive stream of prospects to fuel their roster revamp, but it wasn’t always this way. Winning in the minor leagues was a foreign experience for most Mets prospects, as the team’s affiliates ranked 25th and 26th in winning percentage in 2023 and 2024, respectively.
Not anymore. Three Mets affiliates—Double-A Binghamton, High-A Brooklyn and Low-A St. Lucie—qualified for the playoffs with first-half division championships., according to Matt Eddy of Baseball America. Not only that, but Binghamton and Brooklyn set single-season franchise records for wins.
Further up the ladder, Triple-A Syracuse finished with its first winning record since 2019, and that was just the fifth winning record for a Mets Triple-A affiliate in this century. You’d have to go back to 2013 and 2014 to find three full-season playoff teams doing this for the Mets.
All the losing is by design, at least in part. Most teams don’t take winning in the minors all that seriously, but the Mets do.
“We collectively feel that winning is a huge part of player development,” said Mets farm director Andrew Christie. “It is generally indicative of the quality and depth of your system if you can win games, especially if the players are age appropriate—or younger—for the level.
“Winning is a skill, and learning how to do it in the minor leagues is something we hope to continue to drive home for our group. Development of each player’s individual baseball skills remains our top priority, but if we are doing that well, winning should follow.”
The pitchers have followed, too. Starter Nolan McLean is a favorite to win Rookie of the Year award, and he’s been marked as an ace in waiting. Prospects like pitcher Brandon Sproat and multi positional player Jett Williams allowed the Mets to acquire pitcher Freddy Peralta, who’s now the current ace.
“Our pitching excellence has been building for some time now, and the stuff and execution in spring training was phenomenal,”Christie added. “As is typical, our hitters were a bit behind the pitchers in spring, but we felt very confident we’d have a ton of pitching success.”
That success translates to the hitters, but it often takes more time. Position players typically start out behind the pitchers in spring training, but Christie also thinks it prepares them for future competition, starting in the Florida leagues, then moving up the ladder.
GM David Stearns is the main person behind this, but he’s not the only one. He hired Andy Green as senior VP of player development and Kris Gross as VP of scouting, and Stearns has made sure their approach aligns with that of pitching director Eric Jagers and Jeff Albert, both of whom were hired in 2022 and predate Stearns.
It’s an impressive achievement, and it hasn’t just produced results in the upper minors. The Mets have seen improvement across the board, and it’s a result of a word you don’t usually hear in minor league baseball.
“The word I use is ‘alignment,’” Albert said. “We have good interactions between scouting and player development, where both Eric (Jagers) and I have been involved in the draft. I felt great about being included in the process.
“There’s good communication across departments. It’s something I think we pay attention to. I think we have really strong leadership in each area, in each department.”