3 free agents the NY Mets should sign to minor league contracts

3) Sixto Sanchez

Like Brent Honeywell, Sixto Sanchez was another one of baseball’s best prospects. At one point, he ranked as highly as a top ten prospect by multiple notable top 100 prospect lists, like Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus. This was after his outstanding showing during the shortened 2020 season with the Miami Marlins.

During that season, Sanchez only pitched 39 innings but had a 3.46 ERA, 3.50 FIP, and 1.21 WHIP. Although he only had a 20.9% K%, he was great at limiting walks with a 7% BB%. Sanchez was also good at limiting hard contact and home runs. Opponents only had an 87.8 MPH exit velocity (top 58th percentile) and 5.4% barrel percentage (top 70th percentile), leading to an HR/9 rate of 0.69.

When Sanchez came up to the big leagues, he was hitting 100 MPH with his four-seam fastball, averaging out at 98.8 MPH. He also had an upper-90s sinker, an upper-80s cutter, and a mid-80s slider to complement his blazing fastball. Both his four-seamer and change-up graded out as 70-grade pitches per Baseball America, with the rest of his offerings projecting as above average. Despite the heat he brought to the mound, Sanchez controlled his stuff very well, posting a minor league walk rate of just 4.9%.

However, similarly to Honeywell, Sanchez then ran into a myriad of injuries. He did not appear in any games in 2021, 2022, and only pitched a single frame in 2023. This includes multiple shoulder injuries, and two shoulder surgeries. Sanchez returned to the mound for more than one singular inning in 2024, but the results weren’t pretty.

He put up a meager 6.06 ERA, 4.74 FIP, and 1.50 WHIP in 35.1 innings. Sanchez struck out a dreadful 10.5% of batters faced with an 8.6% walk rate. The most worrying aspect of his game was his huge dip in velocity, as his once 100 MPH fastball sat at just 93.8 MPH. Of the very few positives to speak of, Sanchez still had a solid 6.3% barrel rate and only allowed home runs at a 0.76-per-9 innings rate. Injuries have completely derailed Sanchez’s career, but he is still just 26 years old and won’t turn 27 until late July. Signing Sanchez to a minor league contract is a zero-risk move.