3 NY Mets minor leaguers other than Brandon Sproat we could see start a game by June 1

3) Brandon Waddell

The Mets picked up Brandon Waddell on a minor league contract in December. Waddell returns to affiliated baseball in the United States after spending the better part of the previous three seasons playing in South Korea and China. Waddell’s Major League career consists of just a dozen innings and he hasn’t appeared in the big leagues since 2021.

Last season, Waddell pitched 75 innings for the Doosan Bears of the KBO. He pitched to a 3.12 ERA, 1.15 WHIP, and 6.82 K:BB ratio in a very hitter-friendly league. Last season, the league average ERA and WHIP in the KBO was 4.91 and 1.50, respectively. Waddell induced strikeouts at a 23.8% rate, which was well above the league average of 18.9%, while only handing out a walk to 3.5% of opponents. This was also much better than the KBO average of 9.2%.

Waddell has already made his debut for Triple-A Syracuse, allowing two earned runs with four K’s and a walk in 3.1 innings. The left-hander has never been a hard thrower, even when he was a top-30 prospect for the Pittsburgh Pirates in the late 2010s. He used five pitches in his debut with regularity, including a low-90s four-seam fastball and sinker, a low/mid-80s cutter and change-up, and an upper-70s curveball.

Waddell’s debut was mixed; he induced a decent amount of swing and miss but allowed a pair of runs to score. If the Mets need an emergency start and Waddell continues to get strikeouts while limiting walks, just like he did in the KBO last year, he may get the call to the Major Leagues.