First NY Mets minor league starting lineup for AAA team sums up the system's one flaw

Just a day after MLB’s Opening Day, the Triple-A season begins. The New York Mets’ Triple-A affiliate Syracuse Mets play the Worcester Red Sox on the road to begin their campaign. Blade Tidwell gets the ball in what is hopefully a strong redemption arc in 2025 as he vies for some innings at the major league level.

The first lineup for a team at any level usually has some significance. However, for this team, there isn’t a whole lot of excitement. Many of the players in the starting lineup are ones we saw in camp with the team. Not a single member of the 40-man roster is in a starting lineup featuring mostly cast-offs from other organizations whose primary goal this year is to show enough to justify a big league promotion should the Mets need them.

To put it a little more bluntly; the top part of the Mets farm system’s biggest flaw is their lack of high-level position player prospects.

The Mets don’t have a readily available position player prospect anywhere close to MLB-ready

Had Luisangel Acuna failed to make the team, he would have undoubtedly been front and center in this lineup. The same goes for Brett Baty. Instead, we have a lineup of 9 players where only 2 are longtime Mets farmhands. Luke Ritter is the most well-known. Omar De Los Santos, a guy who hit .196 in High-A and .136 in Double-A last year, is the other. De Los Santos does have some impressive speed, but aside from the 45 stolen bases in 53 attempts last year, it was a season to forget.

Digging deeper into who is on the Syracuse roster and we find few intriguing position players. Drew Gilbert will be sidelined to begin the year. Offseason free agents picked away from the KBO, Brandon Waddell and Jared Young, are present with the latter on the 7-day IL to begin the season.

The storylines at Syracuse appear to be all about the pitching. The staff is headlined by Brandon Sproat. The aforementioned Tidwell is there too as is Dom Hamel who has a lot to prove this season.

More immediate to follow will be how some of the relievers perform. Tyler Zuber pitched well in spring training. Dedniel Nunez will get tuned up in the minor leagues before reasserting himself in the majors. Fliers on veterans like Chris Devenski, Rico Garcia, and Anthony Gose will either look like good value buys or be quickly forgotten about.

The Double-A Rumble Ponies won’t begin their season until next Friday. A team that’ll employ Ryan Clifford and Jett Williams, they’ll be the ones to follow if the progress of the position players is more your jam. However, pitchers like Nolan McLean and Jonah Tong have a chance to easily make the story more about them.

The Mets farm system has reached the stage where the best position player prospects have either already reached the majors or are a little further away than we’d like. The good news is there isn’t really much room for anyone. The major league roster doesn’t have a need in the everyday lineup at the moment nor is there a spot on the bench unfairly occupied by a middling veteran. Patiently, we’ll wait.