Mets: Three Matthew Allan predictions for the 2020 season

The New York Mets are hopeful Matthew Allan can become a future star in the big leagues. What will the highly-touted prospect do in 2020?

A year after the New York Mets drafted, then subsequently traded away their first-round pick, the viewed-to-be-generational talent Jarred Kelenic, the team, including General Manager Brodie Van Wagenen, scouting director Tommy Tanous, and the Mets entire draft war room entered the 2019 draft war room with a mission: make a splash. And a splash they made.

After selecting the consensus top prep hitter in the draft in Brett Baty, not to mention fireballing Texan right-handed pitcher Josh Wolf, the Mets found themselves in a situation neither they nor anyone else anticipated. Consensus top prep pitching prospect Matthew Allan was unselected after the first two rounds and almost halfway through the third round.

In order to ensure at least a shot at signing the prep righty, the Mets had to make some major concessions, chief among them drafting college seniors with their remaining Day 2 picks to ensure they would be able to meet Allan’s high bonus demand. The bonus Allan originally demanded exceeded $4 million and had no team met his asking price he would have honored his commitment to play at the University of Florida. Ultimately, Allan signed for $2.5 million.

Though his 2019 season was limited to 10.1 innings between the Gulf Coast League and Brooklyn, Allan showed how dominant he could be by striking out 14 batters in his professional debut.

With Allan’s first full season coming up, there’s plenty of questions as to whether he’ll make a major leap, whether he’s the Mets’ ace of the future, and exactly what his future entails. Let’s take a look at what may happen in 2020.

An Appearance on MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 Prospects

While it was encouraging to see four Mets made the Pipeline top 100 Prospect list including 2019 first-rounder Brett Baty. there was one glaring omission. To be fair, the Pipeline top 100 list undergoes a lot of changes during the season due to graduations and the midseason update, and it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility that Allan is likely one of those prospects that just missed the cut.

Still, an impressive start at Columbia, which is where he should start his sophomore campaign could force the issue with Jim Callis, Jonathan Mayo, and Mike Rosenbaum. The consensus in their “Best non-top 100 prospect by team” article was that Allan was next in line thanks in part to his projectability and arsenal.

There are quite a few prospects that are deserving of a major league call up, if not on Opening Day then definitely early on in the season, and when they graduate, Allan should sneak in in short order. He’ll probably start somewhere in the 90’s, but a strong season could potentially boost him another ten or 20 spots.

Allan will make his name known and dominate

As mentioned, Allan only has 10.1 innings of professional baseball under his belt, but those innings showed how much of a specimen he could be. With a devastating one-two punch in his mid-90’s downhill fastball and 2500+ RPM curveball (according to Baseball America), not to mention an above average, if not developing changeup. Allan’s arsenal Is deadly, and a full season of carving up hitters is definitely possible for him.

If fans needed any more proof that Allan showed potential to be an ace pitcher, there is some proof from when he was pitching in the Gulf Coast League last year.

Allan will likely start the 2020 season at Columbia, and with a full Spring Training and more exposure to his contemporaries as opposed to transitioning from Florida high schoolers, he will definitely take the South Atlantic League by storm. His arsenal is definitely going to help him run through the league with ease, and it wouldn’t be a surprise for him to make a case to be a league all-star, and potentially make a late season jump to high A St. Lucie.

While I am not in the business of making statistical projections, it is possible that Allan could win at least seven games and have a sub 3.00 ERA with close to, if not more than 100 strikeouts. That filthy curve of his definitely will carry him and give him some serious dominance.

Not only will Allan succeed statistically in his first season, but he will also make a case to be the Mets’ most hyped pitching prospect since Noah Syndergaard, and will likely be the next big pitching prospect MLB talks about until he makes his eventual big league debut.