5 things NY Mets fans will want to know about Brandon Sproat before his big league debut

The wave of young pitching continues to wash over the shores of Queens. Just a week after calling Jonah Tong up to the big show, and two weeks after Nolan McLean joined the club, the New York Mets are bringing in the third musketeer, Brandon Sproat. The youth movement has been succesful so far; fans are hoping this is a continuation.

Is this the next "generation K"? I certainly hope not. Is it the next Matt Harvey/Zach Wheeler/Steven Matz/Jacob deGrom/Noah Syndergaard? Well, I hope they're that good, but I hope they actually stick together. Only time will tell. But with a third young arm joining the movement, it's a fun time to be a Mets fan. So we need to start getting to know Sproat, who we hope will be here for a long time.

Fair warning, none of the interesting anecdotes I'm about to provide you include a catchy nickname. That's something we need to work on with him. Broadway Brandon? Goat Sproat? The Gator? Sproater? The Florida Flamethrower? The Swamp Slinger? The Panhandle Prodigy? Well, maybe none of those. But get to know him anyway, with some interesting notes heading into his debut.

1. Double-drafted by the Mets

The MLB draft is weird. The best players aren't always selected first. Budgets become a huge variable. Players get drafted and never play. The list goes on. Well, Brandon Sproat is an example of two hundred million of this. He was, somehow, drafted by the Mets multiple times. How is that possible, you ask? Only in MLB.

In 2022, the Mets selected Sproat in the third round. Instead of packing his bags and heading north, the young gunslinger decided to gamble on his own abilities and stay put at the University of Florida. This bet worked out in his favor, increasing his draft value further. But when he told the Mets, "thanks, but no thanks," I bet he never expected them to be the team to call his name the following season in the second round. That is precisely what happened, though.

2. A No-Hitter loss

It's never bad to throw a no-hitter. But sometimes, in rare cases, it can come with a bitter taste as well. It's almost impossible to lose a baseball game in which you don't allow a single base hit. But in Brand Sproat's case, it's highly possible. In high school in Pace, Florida, he was a part of a combined no-hitter. He carried this into the fifth inning, which is where everything went wrong.

Despite not letting up a hit, he let up several walks, which in turn led to runs that his team was not able to recover from. He was relieved of his duties, and his teammates completed the no-hitter. But they did so in a losing effort. While this isn't exactly his finest hour, it will also go down as an essential professional lesson for him. Since that moment, Sproat has locked into managing his control and emotions on the mound to a degree he hadn't previously.

3. Sustaining velocity

Have you ever thrown a baseball? Hard? Have you ever done it a bunch of times in a row? Your arm starts to hurt a little bit, right? After a really long time, it hurts enough where you aren't throwing as hard, right? This is just simple physics. I could've told you that in 2nd-grade Little League. But the caveat here – Brandon Sproat apparently defies simple physics.

As he goes late into games, Sproat's velocity sustains better than most. Not that you should expect to see him going 12 innings and 210 pitches. But he definitely has a unique ability to maintain his power and stamina. This is specifically crucial to the Mets as they've consistently struggled to get pitchers to last more than five innings.

4. "Let it Eat"

He may not have a fun nickname, but I KNEW he had some true Met in him somewhere. What he lacks in name, he makes up for in life motto. He even has it written on his glove tape on occasion. "Let it eat." What does it mean? It means that Brandon is telling himself to go out there and sling it. He's telling himself to pitch without fear and with ultimate trust in his stuff. He's going to need that kind of moxy in New York. We are an unforgiving town. But he clearly has the right mindset heading into the experience.

5. Big-game pedigree

We aren't getting a kid who's going to be a deer in headlights when he sees the roaring Citi Field faithful. Sproat pitched in the SEC for Florida. He's been in big games. He's played in games that mattered beyond rational understanding by his hometown fans. He's stared down the catcher, looking for the right pitch, with thousands of rabid fans vibrating in his ear. He knows how to pitch when there's more adrenaline than blood pulsing through his veins.

He's also faced talented lineups. I'm not saying that LSU or Arkansas stack up to the Phillies or the Yankees. But he's battled the best of the best in his age group, and he's excelled while doing it. Do I know if he'll be "Mr. Clutch"? No, I don't. But his base-level experience in big games trumps most rookies. And he's about to play in some very... very big games, down the stretch.