NY Mets add insurance their outfield depth with fallen LA Dodgers prospect

The Brandon Nimmo trade has opened up a massive hole in the New York Mets outfield, but do not fret! David Stearns is on the case. The Mets have wasted no time making an addition to their outfield. Is it one of the stars, like Kyle Tucker, Cody Bellinger, or Fernando Tatis Jr.? Eh, not quite.

While we all wait for the next earth-shattering move, Stearns set his sights lower, much lower, inking former Los Angeles Dodgers prospect Jose Ramos to a minor league deal. Not what you were hoping for? Understandable, but these depth moves matter.

Ramos will get an invite to big league spring training, giving the 24-year-old an outside shot at cracking the 26-man roster as a depth piece. And, if the Mets can solve this riddle, there could be an intriguing piece here.

The Mets are signing former Dodgers top prospect Jose Ramos, bringing an intriguing outfield insurance policy into the fold

Ramos signed as an amateur international free agent, not out of a baseball hotbed like the Dominican Republic or Venezuela, but rather out of Panama, a country whose best-known major league export was New York Yankees' great Mariano Rivera.

Signing for just $30,000, Ramos wasn't initially looked at as a potential rising star, but as he worked his way through the Dodgers' system, he started to pick up steam. Coming in at No. 14 on LA's top 30 prospect list back in 2022, Ramos began to draw comparisons to the more highly-touted Andy Pages

Moments like this are the reason why.

Yes, that's a building his homer ricocheted off of. Impressive.

Ramos really started coming alive in 2022. That year, he split time between Single-A and Hi-A, posting a combined line of .249/.339/.479 with 25 homers. He also managed a healthy 10.5% walk rate between both levels.

But that's also where the cracks started to show. Ramos had shown power flashes before, and had kept his strikeouts somewhat manageable in the past. But once he hit Hi-A, he saw his K-rate balloon to 32.7% over the 407 plate appearances he logged at the level in 2022.

He showed some marginal improvement, cutting them down to 28.9% in 2023 while toiling in Double-A, but saw them spike back up again in 2024, coming in at 34% at Double-A. This year, he split time between Double-A and Triple-A (his first taste of Triple-A action), and went down via the K 31.4% of the time.

The strikeout issues are what will ultimately hold him back. However, if there's a way the Mets can fix his whiff problem, the other skills, highlighted by his power, but also include a plus-plus arm, good speed, and a solid glove, could make for a useful player.

These kinds of dart throws don't often work out, but sometimes a change of scenery and some new voices can unlock a player, and when that happens, they are insanely valuable. Ramos is certainly one to monitor, but don't get your hopes up.