Unlikely NY Mets prospect continues to make an impression after injury-riddled start

It’s a theme we all love to see: a minor league player we never heard of rising to the occasion. The New York Mets have a guy in the minors right now who is inching up toward the big leagues.

In the face of losing Dedniel Nunez to Tommy John surgery, a door has swung open for the Mets to take a chance on some other in-house options before, during, and after the MLB trade deadline. The team should be hyper-focused on high-leverage veterans (many of whom won’t have minor league options) while keeping a roster spot or two open for the shuttle of relievers that’ll go back and forth from Queens to Syracuse.

His name is Dylan Ross and weeks away from turning 25, he’s essentially new to pitching at such a high level.

Mets prospect Dylan Ross is one of the most surprising risers in the system this year

Ross was a 13th round draft pick in 2022 and only managed to log a single game of action until this season. The Mets had him in the Arizona Fall League last autumn where he pitched to a 17.47 ERA.

Ross is the kind of guy you can’t look at the stat sheets to understand. He pitched only 5 games in college, adding another handful in the Florida Collegiate Summer League before the Mets drafted him. Arm injuries plagued him as an amateur. His elbow hasn’t looked favorably upon him much even since becoming a professional ball player.

The hard-throwing righty could very well end up as an easily forgotten flame-throwing minor leaguer the Mets thought they could keep healthy. Or, based on this year’s results, he’s bound to accomplish a whole lot more.

His season began in Brooklyn and rather than let him toil behind his peers, the Mets rushed him up to Binghamton. The ERA jumped from 1.54 to 4.35. However, Ross managed to find his control while in Double-A. He went from 6.2 BB/9 down to 2.6 while maintaining a fantastic strikeout rate. He was at 17.7 per 9 in High-A versus 15.7 per 9 in Double-A.

Now with Syracuse, some of those same issues have risen with his control. Ross went into Saturday’s game with 5.6 BB/9 and a still marvelous 13.5 K/9. It seems he can choose between being unhittable (but with a lot of walks) or suffer from a couple of meatballs. He had 3 home runs hit against him in only 10.1 innings for the Rumble Ponies. Nobody has homered against him while with Syracuse as he sits with a 1.13 ERA in 8 innings of work. Unfortunately, he has 4 wild pitches already which is sure to hold him back.

Adding to the intrigue, Ross is already Rule 5 eligible at the end of this season. The Mets would either need to add him to their 40-man roster or risk losing him for nothing. The high walk rate suggests he’s not quite ready for any consistent playing time in the majors. But that nasty stuff puts up a good argument.

Arms like his may be best utilized on the trade market. Either now or prior to the Rule 5 Draft, it might be worth seeing how interested other clubs are when it comes to this spectacular draft risk currently paying off.