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Top 10 Mets Prospects For 2025
Plus: What's really happening with age fraud in the Dominican Republic, Minor league Hit+ leaderboards & the best Rule 5 Draft picks this century
Top 10 Mets Prospects For 2025
We’re continuing our rollout of Top 10 prospect lists for 2025 with a look at the New York Mets.
The top of the Mets system is headlined by Jett Williams, a versatile speedster whose on-base ability and leadoff hitter mindset could land him an MLB debut next season if he continues to perform well in the upper minors. For the complete Mets breakdown, be sure to check out:
Stay tuned each day this week as we continue prospect drops for the rest of the division, with the NL Central and West set to come soon, too.
THE FALLOUT FROM MLB’S CESAR ALTAGRACIA INVESTIGATION
What’s Really Happening With Age Fraud In The Dominican Republic?
Multiple players in line to receive significant bonuses on the international market have seen those deals fall apart because of MLB investigations into their age and identities, including 2027 shortstop Cesar Altagracia over the weekend. This includes players committed over the next few cycles.
So what exactly is happening here?
Ben Badler explains how MLB’s investigative unit has gained a newfound effectiveness over the last 18 months, and cautions against assuming that age fraud is necessarily on the rise in the Dominican Republic.
HIT+ LEADERS FOR EVERY AGE GROUP
Minor League Hit+ Leaderboards By Age In 2024
When it comes to evaluating young hitters, the list of available metrics is vast. Sometimes, though, it’s nice to have just a single, comprehensive number with which to judge a player’s performance against his peers.
Baseball America’s Dylan White provides exactly that in his latest article tabulating age-bracketed Hit+ leaderboards across the minor leagues for 2024.
In order to calculate an all-encompassing number across a variety of metrics, we used weighted on-base average (wOBA) as a baseline and built our “Hit+” score weighted by each metric’s correlation to wOBA. This number measures production versus the average in a similar fashion to weighted Runs Created (wRC+), moving up and down from the average score of 100. The main inputs to this metric were contact rate, 90th percentile exit velocity, chase rate, barrel rate and expected weighted-on-base-average-on-contact (xwOBAcon).
The final result is a fascinating look at last year’s top performers across 10 distinct age levels. Standouts include:
An up-and-coming Guardians outfielder who played nearly the entire DSL season as a 16-year-old
A pair of exciting young Dodgers near the top of the age-19 bracket
Our current No. 1 overall prospect showing why he’s so highly rated
WHO RULED THE RULE 5 DRAFT?
The Best Rule 5 Draft Picks Of The 21st Century
With the Rule 5 Draft coming up next month, J.J. Cooper took a look back over the last two-plus decades worth of player picks— over 350 MLB selections and thousands more at the minor league level—to build out the ultimate 26-man Rule 5 roster.
Everyone on this team “stuck,” which means they fulfilled the Rule 5 Draft eligibility requirements. For MLB Rule 5 draft picks, that means that they remained on their new team’s MLB roster for the entirety of the following season without being optioned to the minors. MiLB Rule 5 picks are immediately part of their new organization with no roster restrictions. We did not include players who were picked but eventually offered back to their old clubs.
Many of the names will represent a “Let’s Remember Some Guys” stroll down memory lane. Notable selections include:
A Reds selection in 2006 who went on to win MVP
A former Royals closer who saved 229 games across 14 seasons
A 2024 all-star who swatted 44 homers and figures to land a hefty deal in free agency this winter.
CHECKING OUT THE CHECKLIST
2024 Bowman Draft Checklist: MLB Prospect Cards We’re Hunting
Matt Pajak is back with more exciting intel for card collectors, this time taking a look at the newly-published checklist for the upcoming Bowman Draft release, which features a pair of top 2024 MLB Draft names in Travis Bazzana and Jac Caglianone on the box art.
Highlights include:
Risk-reward analysis on top names in the set
A rundown of cards to hunt
A look ahead to next year’s 2025 release
Where to buy, formats & pricing
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