Heading into the 2020 season, the New York Mets will have four of the best 100 prospects in baseball.
MLB.com released its annual preseason list of the top prospects for the year on Saturday. The New York Mets found themselves with four prospects on the list.
Last year’s first-round pick Brett Baty found his way on the list at number 93 with former number one prospect in the organization, Andres Gimenez, slotting in at number 84.
Neck-and-neck at number 62 and 63, we find Ronny Mauricio and Francisco Alvarez in these respective spots.
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There weren’t any surprises on this list. Just about everywhere you will look to find rankings of prospects has similar high praise for these four. They’re also usually in this same order within the organization.
Mauricio will head into 2020 as the unanimous number one prospect of the franchise. However, it seems that Alvarez isn’t far behind. If I had to guess, I think Alvarez makes the bigger leap in 2020. There’s something special about a catcher who can hit as well as he can that grabs attention early on.
It’s also good to see Baty crack the top 100 even if he’s pretty close to the bottom. The Mets have traded away quite a few notable first-round picks in just the last year and a half. It’s pretty important he develops well or at least becomes a good trade chip they could use to improve the MLB roster.
As for Gimenez, he seems to have fallen out of favor. At the end of the 2018 season, he was ranked number 55 by MLB Pipeline. By the time others put together good seasons in 2020 and the draft occurs, he may slip out from the top 100.
Prospect rankings are never a perfect formula. Plenty of guys rise up to the major leagues without getting much notoriety on lists like these. Jeff McNeil was never a top Mets prospect until he ravaged minor league pitchers in 2018 and earned two promotions in a short period of time.
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Four prospects on the top 100 list isn’t a bad place for the Mets to be. The only downside may be a lack of pitchers on the list. For a good part of the last decade, developing pitchers has been their bread and butter. Right now, they’re severely lacking in this department.