Former Dodgers prospect could be NY Mets pitching lab's next Frankenstein's monster

Jeremy Hefner might be out, but the New York Mets' pitching lab is still intact. While most of the offseason attention will be on what the team does to solve the top of its rotation, make no mistake that David Stearns will be on the prowl for the club's next Frankenstein.

Prior to his frightening injury, Griffin Canning looked to be well on his way to becoming the lab's latest success story. A former top prospect from the Los Angeles Angels, Griffin's career looked to be dead after he was part of a salary dump trade to the Atlanta Braves and immediately DFA'd, but the lab brought him back to life with a 3.77 ERA prior to going down.

This time around, the Mets could look back to LA for a reclamation project, targeting former Los Angeles Dodgers' top prospect and brief Boston Red Sox hurler Dustin May this winter.

With the Mets' pitching lab's help, Dustin May could terrorize the rest of the league

Once the Dodgers' No.2 overall prospect, the six-foot-six right-hander had the build of a future ace. However, much like Canning, injuries would derail May's launch to an even greater degree. Prior to 2025, the 28-year-old had never logged more than 56 innings in a big league season.

Injuries hit a critical mass for May in 2024, when, while recovering from a Tommy John revision to correct an elbow flexor tendon issue, he had a life-threatening bout with a salad. That truly scary incident required emergency surgery that ultimately ended his season before it could begin.

May finally stayed mostly healthy in 2025, but when the Dodgers really needed him after suffering a wave of injuries to starters like Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, and Roki Sasaki, he didn't do much to run with the opportunity and was shipped off to the Boston Red Sox in an acrimonious trade deadline divorce.

In total, May logged 132.1 innings and posted a 4.96 ERA and 4.88 FIP. It was a major disappointment, but it does not erase the talent he possesses.

In three of the six MLB seasons he's appeared in, the big right-hander has posted an ERA under 2.75. Armed with a fastball that sits in the mid-to-high 90s, May has three other pitches that play well, including a sweeper, cutter, and sinker. In the past, he's also utilized a curveball and a changeup on occasion.

By Stuff+, his repertoire has long graded out as well above average, ranging from marks of 117 to 133 from 2019 through 2023. In 2025, that number plummeted to a pedestrian 101.

Rather than injuries taking their toll, it would appear that tweaks to his pitch usage might be at least partially to blame. In 2023, May threw his four-seamer 27.5% of the time and yielded just a .214 average against the pitch, but in 2025, he cut the usage of his heater down to 16.6% despite it yielding a .165 batting average.

His sinker usage was roughly the same, in the 33% range in both seasons, but the results were drastically different. In 2023, the pitch produced a .250 slugging percentage, but in 2025, that ballooned to a ghastly .567 mark.

May leaned on his sweeper more in 2025, and while it produced a 27.5% whiff rate, it would seem that everything played a little worse off the reduced fastball usage.

Another factor to watch is May's arm angle. In 2023, when he posted a 2.63 ERA, it was a three-quarters delivery coming in at 30 degrees. In 2025, he flattened it out to 21 degrees. That seemed to have impacted his movement and made the pitches come out flat.

Whatever the diagnosis is, May would provide the Mets' mad scientists with an intriguing ball of clay to mold into a monstrous force. Spotrac projects just a one-year $3.9 million deal for him, making him an extremely affordable dart throw.