Here's what to look for in Brandon Sproat's debut
On the heels of a tough loss for Jonah Tong and the Mets on Saturday, the Mets look to another highly-rated rookie for additional answers
What’s up with the Mets? ⚾️
The Mets dropped the second game of a critical series against the Reds, 6-2 (box)
RHP Jonah Tong allowed four runs in his six innings of work, including three home runs, while striking out six and walking four
SS Francisco Lindor continued his latest hot streak with a three-hit day, including two doubles; he was also caught stealing twice
CF Cedric Mullins (21) and RF Juan Soto (29) both stole bases, while C Luis Torrens caught his 19th base stealer of the season
RHP Ryne Stanek had another tough outing, earning two more runs in his brief appearance
Mets hitters provided Tong with minimal run support, striking out 11 times on Saturday and leaving 10 men stranded
Injury Updates 🏥
RHP Reed Garrett (elbow strain) is ready to come off the IL as of today, depending on the Mets’ bullpen needs
OF Jose Siri (fractured tibia) played a full game for Triple-A Syracuse yesterday. He went 1-for-5 with a two-run homer and three strikeouts; Siri should be headed back to Queens after “a few more at-bats”
Just Mets Podcast 🎙️
ICYMI: Rich MacLeod sat down with former Mets reliever Trevor May for a breakdown of Ryan Helsley’s recent struggles and his thoughts on the Mets’ season so far.
Playoff Race 🏁
The Phillies won again on Saturday, putting them a full seven games ahead of the Mets for first place with 20 games to play.
The Padres also beat the Rockies, which, with the Mets’ loss, allowed them to reclaim sole possession of the second NL wild card spot.
Thankfully, the Cardinals toppled the Giants, maintaining the gap between San Francisco and New York, and the Diamondbacks beat the Red Sox, helping keep their lead over Cincinnati. The Mets magic number over the Giants to win the third Wild Card is 16 (they own the tiebreaker), 16 against both the Diamondbacks and the Reds.
The Reds would own the tiebreaker over the Mets if they win today by virtue of the fact they would win the season series against them. So, in that case, if the Mets and Reds finish in a tie, the Reds would either receive a higher seed or eliminate the Mets.
The Mets and Diamondbacks tied their season series 3-3, so the tiebreaker will be determined by their records against their own divisions at the end of the season (rules).
The Mets current playoff odds, per FanGraphs, is 95.4 percent:
Who’s Hot? 🥵
Juan Soto drew his 117th walk and stole his 29th base. He is one stolen base shy of his first 30/30 season and is currently in the midst of a 15-game on-base streak
Francisco Lindor is slashing .333/.468/.500 over his last 10 games with a homer, three doubles, five steals, five RBI, and 10 runs scored
2B Jeff McNeil is hitting .324/.395/.432 over his last 10 games
Who’s Cold? 🥶
Cedric Mullins is hitless in his last seven games, mired in a 0-for-19 skid with seven strikeouts
Play of the Game ⭐️
Of the three homers Jonah Tong gave up yesterday, this one poured a pound of salt into the wound that was opened in the innings prior.
Leading off the bottom of the fourth inning, Reds LF Austin Hays sent a 1-0 fastball screaming nearly 400 feet into the left field stands at 103 mph. Hays was the third Red to tee off on a second-pitch heater thrown middle-to-up in the zone.
Hays has regularly found success against the Mets throughout his time in MLB, with a lifetime .308/.419/.615 slash line over 30 career plate appearances against New York pitchers since 2021.
Down on the Farm 🌾
LHP Brandon Waddell (Triple-A): 6.0 IP, 6 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 4 K
DH Ryan Clifford (No. 8 prospect, Triple-A): 2-for-4, 1 HR, 1 2B, 2 R, 3 RBI, 2 K
2B Mitch Voit (No. 9 prospect, Single-A): 1-for-4, 3 R, 1 RBI, 2 BB, 2 K, 3 SB
CF Trey Snyder (No. 29 prospect, Single-A): 2-for-4, 2 R, 2 RBI, 2 BB, 1 K, 2 SB
The St. Lucie Mets set a franchise record with 13 stolen bases
BOX SCORES
Single-A STL | High-A BRK (PPD) | Double-A BNG | Triple-A SYR
Today’s Game 🗓️
Match-up: Mets (76-66) at Reds (71-71)
Where: Great American Ball Park - Cincinnati, OH
Starters: RHP Brandon Sproat (MLB debut) vs. RHP Hunter Greene (5-4, 2.70 ERA)
When: 1:40 PM EDT
Where to Watch: WPIX, MLB Network (out-of-market only)
Introducing Brandon Sproat, next up from the minors! ✍️
With the debuts of Nolan McLean and Jonah Tong out of the way, all eyes now eagerly turn to the pitching prospect that once headlined the entire bunch.
Mets fans should be fairly familiar with this kid by now — the team did draft him twice, after all.
Sproat flew through the minors last year, dominating at High-A and Double-A before tailing off a bit after his promotion to Triple-A. This year, admittedly, has also been a bit of a roller coaster:
No, these aren’t the worst nor the flashiest numbers you’ll see, but it’s safe to say that surface-level stats aside, Sproat has given Mets fans and the front office plenty to be excited about — especially lately.
Save for one blowup start and a failed bullpen experiment that we don’t need to revisit right now, Sproat has been excellent in his last outings for Syracuse:
Last 7 Starts: 4-1, 36.1 IP, 20 H, 1 HR, 48 K-14 BB, 13 R, 11 ER, 2.72 ERA, 2.16 FIP, 0.93 WHIP
This latest stretch of starts (along with the tailspinning performance of the big-league staff over recent weeks and the emergence of McLean and Tong) has all but forced Mets’ management’s hands. Despite a less-than-stellar start to the season, Sproat has held steady enough to maintain the faith of the top brass.
And now, he’s finally getting the call we’ve all been waiting for.
What makes Sproat most exciting to me is the breadth of his pitch mix. When he’s working with his best stuff, Sproat offers the fastball power of Tong with zone-spreading breaking stuff reminiscent of McLean (in terms of their pitch maps, not pitch shapes).
Take a look at the charts above, both courtesy of Prospect Savant. Looking at the spin rate/Statcast data and the map above, I see a few pitches that intrigue me in particular:
The Sinker: Considering the Mets’ propensity for throwing sinkers (eighth-most in MLB in 2025) and generating ground balls (46.2%, highest rate in MLB), I’m curious to see how Sproat’s sinker factors into his mix out of the gate, especially seeing the success McLean’s had attacking hitters in the zone so far. Granted, it elicits the lowest whiff rate relative to the rest of Sproat’s repertoire, but pitching to contact at a relatively average hard contact rate worries me less with a big league defense behind him. This pitch can be an elite tunneling tool with the four-seamer as well, as both pitches take nearly identical paths at functionally equivalent speeds until the sinker breaks over 16” just as it arrives at the plate.
The Sweeper: The second-slowest pitch of the bunch, Sproat’s sweeper is one of the deadliest he has to offer. Generating swings and misses nearly 34% of the time alongside measly contact when it is hit, the sweeper has been looking extra effective at Triple-A recently — by my count, it was the K pitch in close to half of the 48 strikeouts he tossed in his last seven games. The way it moves laterally across the zone and the looping path it takes at a mere 84 mph makes each sweeper look tantalizingly hittable out of his hand, yet often results in opposing hitters swinging over it by several inches or watching it bend back into the zone as it reaches the end of its arc to the plate. It’s a genuinely beautiful pitch to watch break.
The Curveball: Though it’s been far and away his least-utilized pitch in the minors this season, I can’t help but think we may see more of Sproat’s curveball on display in his first few starts than his minor league ratios may suggest. I’m mostly basing this on what we saw in McLean’s debut alongside arguably better performance data: though McLean’s curve was thrown around 8% of the time in MiLB and offered more severe movement, it was also hit much harder whenever contact was made. While Sproat’s curve has generated a lower whiff rate than McLean’s, it has also generated the lowest hard-hit rate out of any pitch in Sproat’s mix. I wonder if the pitching coaches will see that and aim to deploy it a bit more frequently to help vary his offspeed offerings as much as possible.
Regardless of what gets featured when, the fact that Sproat offers five effective pitches that he distributes evenly suggests an underlying blanket confidence in his stuff, regardless of situation or circumstance. Though McLean technically has six pitches in his bag, he has primarily turned to his two heaviest hitters (his sweeper and his sinker) more than half of the time in his MLB starts so far, which matches his MiLB ratios; I’m very curious to see if Sproat’s pitch distribution in the majors also matches his MiLB usage rates.
Now, there are definitely things to keep an eye on as Sproat makes this jump. Though he has some pitches with high whiff action, his overall whiff and swinging-strike numbers are actually pretty poor. Additionally, he doesn’t generate a ton of chase, which frankly doesn’t surprise me: looking at his Prospect Savant chart above, all of his pitches have relatively average ‘stuff’ grades. Though Prospect Savant’s ‘stuff’ formula is still being refined, using Eno Sarris’s established Stuff+ model, Sproat’s pitches all appear to be fairly average tools on paper — even Savant’s scouting report says his fastball’s effectiveness is “more about its velocity than its shape.” It’ll be fascinating to see how his pitch mix plays on the big league level and how he balances pitch selection with power and placement.
Still, with his early-season struggles seemingly behind him and a handful of weapons that have been working exceptionally well for him recently, the timing couldn’t be more perfect for such a long-awaited debut.
My eyes will obviously be glued to the screen.
Around the League 🚩
Yoshinobu Yamamoto came up just one out shy of a no-hitter in Baltimore; the Dodgers, incredibly, lost the game after the bullpen surrendered four runs in the bottom of the ninth. It was LA’s fifth-straight loss
Tarik Skubal had another incredible outing, allowing just two hits while striking out six across seven scoreless innings; this marks his 12th outing of six-or-more scoreless innings, tying Adam Wainwright’s record for the most such outings in a single season since the mound was lowered in 1969
Julio Rodriguez hit two homers (29, 30) and Cal Raleigh hit his 52nd as the Mariners beat the Braves 10-2. Raleigh’s homer was his 42nd from the catcher position, tying Javy López’s record for most in a single season as a catcher
Excited for Sproat! I watched some of Adam Ottovino’s live stream last night talking about Tong. He really liked his game overall. He only gave up 3 hits - unfortunately they were all HRs. Needs to work on his command
Best thing for Mets yesterday was that St Louis, after being shut out for 8 innings, came back and beat Giants in the 9th. If the Giants had won, that 95% number would be a lot lower. I think they’ve won 13 out of last 15. Obviously, if they were to continue that pace, they’d pass the Mets. In order to prevent that we need to catch San Diego as playoff insurance.