Top 100 prospect list from 4 years ago offers NY Mets no Ronny Mauricio conclusion

MLB Pipeline’s top 100 prospects from 2022 is ancient history enough to start to wonder who got things wrong and who got them right. Bobby Witt Jr. at number one is as accurate as it gets. Joe Ryan at 97th is a disservice. How about the New York Mets on the list? We’re still kind of waiting.

Francisco Alvarez continues to try to prove himself. Brett Baty is coming off of his best year, but has the “can he do it again?” question attached.

Then there’s Ronny Mauricio. Ranked 78th overall, he’s two spots behind Elly De La Cruz and trails Vidal Brujan by a single spot. Which one is he going to be?

Ronny Mauricio still seems capable of being the next Elly De La Cruz or another Vidal Brujan

Exciting, flashy, and one of the league’s best young players, De La Cruz lived up to more than the billing in 2022. He debuted a year later and has been progressively getting better for the Cincinnati Reds. Is he flawed? Yes. Does he change games? Absolutely. He’ll play this coming year at 24-years-old.

Brujan was a Tampa Bay Rays prospect in 2022 with limited big league experience. He turned 28 in February and is now a veteran utility man with a lifetime .199 average in the major leagues. The contrast between him and De La Cruz is massive. If you’re unsure about what Mauricio becomes, you may feel there’s as good a chance he’s similar to Brujan with some different skillsets.

This coming season is huge for Mauricio as it’ll be both his age 25 campaign and last year with a minor league option, assuming it gets used at some point. The lost 2024 campaign due to his offseason ACL injury put a stop sign on his development. Last year was a “get healthy” season and right now the only path toward major league playing time will come as an injury replacement.

Glimmers of hope shown through 292 big league plate appearances, the Mets haven’t committed to a single position or even a role for him. Third base seems to be the priority at this point. Even if he masters fielding the position, there’s a matter of addressing how he hits from the right side of the plate.

Prospect lists don’t take long to get outdated. What has seemed to take forever is the permanent arrival of Mauricio to the major leagues as a regular contributor. The next De La Cruz, another Brujan, or somewhere in between, we should have something more conclusive this year.