Baseball America declares traded NY Mets prospect a 'breakout' candidate for 2026

The New York Mets sent Raimon Gómez to Baltimore at the 2025 trade deadline as part of the package for Cedric Mullins. Now Baseball America has Gómez — a reliever who has touched 104.5 mph — pegged as the Baltimore Orioles’ breakout pitching prospect hiding behind an ordinary stat line.

In the moment they acquired Mullins, it was clean “win-now” logic: fix an MLB hole with minor league depth. The part that looks rough in hindsight is that Mullins is already gone (he signed a one-year deal with the Rays for 2026), so the trade reads more like rental math than roster building.

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And that’s why the Gómez thing hits a nerve. The Mets are always hunting a high-leverage velocity style profile. Gómez is that idea taken to cartoon levels. MLB’s own write-up on the 104.5 mph pitch noted he was living in triple digits almost the entire inning. 

But the honest part is the Mets didn’t ship out a finished product. Gómez’s “ordinary” stat line is ordinary for a reason. In 2025, he logged 35 innings across Low-A and High-A with a 4.63 ERA and 1.34 WHIP, striking out 48 but walking 25. Add in the injury flags — Tommy John surgery cost him essentially two full seasons — and he even hit the injured list with a lower-back strain after the trade.

So why would Baseball America plant a breakout flag anyway? Because relievers don’t need perfection; they are built off of moments. If Baltimore gets him to throw even a few more strikes, his status changes instantly. A 104 mph fastball doesn’t have to live on the black to bully hitters. It just has to be close enough that they can’t sit slider.

For the Mets, they can’t treat this like a tragedy. Deadline deals come with a tax, and sometimes the tax is upside you can’t replace easily. But it should definitely be a lesson: if you’re going to move a flamethrower, you’d better be sure the big-league return is more than a patch. Because if Gómez pops soon, Mets fans won’t be wrong to feel it.