Mets cut 21-year-old former top 100 prospect at the non-tender deadline

MLB’s non-tender trade deadline came at 8pm EST on Friday. A time usually reserved for news dumps actually had much of the baseball world watching as a whole new fleet of free agents are now available. Teams unwilling to pay projected arbitration numbers bid farewell to attractive players. The New York Mets were a little tamer with what they did.

A new deal with Sean Reid-Foley was reached to avoid arbitration. Does it include conveniently timed injuries? Paul Blackburn was tendered a deal despite not being available for Opening Day. The Mets ended up non-tendering three players. Grant Hartwig, Alex Young, and former top 100 prospect Alex Ramirez are now all headed into free agency.

The choices were a bit unusual for the Mets as only Young was arbitration eligible. Hartwig pitched sparingly in the majors and as an undrafted free agent signing by the team, to even get this far is quite remarkable. Then there’s Ramirez whose placement as a top 100 prospect prior to the 2023 season by Baseball America, MLB Pipeline, and Baseball Prospectus turned out to be a miss.

The Mets pulled the rip cord on once promising prospect Alex Ramirez

The Mets had high hopes for Ramirez after a 2022 campaign which featured a .281/.346/.436 slash line with 30 doubles, 11 home runs, and 21 stolen bases. It was his age 19 season. He was a budding prospect in the system.

Then came the 2023 and 2024 seasons. They were virtually the same. Ramirez batted .221/.301/.317 in High-A during the 2023 season. Things weren’t any better this past year in Double-A. He hit .210/.291/.299. An exact matching total of 101 hits in each season with 145 total bases in 2023 and 144 in 2024 suggest no hints of an improvement. While he did swipe 40 bases, the lack of hitting was concerning.

Ramirez was only on the 40-man roster because the Mets chose to protect him last offseason out of fear of seeing a team select him in the Rule 5 Draft. Whoops!

Apparently no team was willing to give the Mets anything at all for Ramirez in a trade of any kind. Surely a name brought up by David Stearns to representatives of other teams at this month’s GM Meetings, the poor protection and presence on the 40-man roster with no signs of being MLB-ready were enough to have the Mets cutting ties rather than allow him a chance to redeem himself in 2025.

Remarkably only 21-years-old, signing a new minor league free agent deal is the best resolution for Ramirez. The pressure of performing at the big league level before his minor league options are all exhausted now go on pause. One was used last year. Another season in Double-A to try and figure it out should be where he’s headed. A return to the Mets organization on a new deal is more unnecessary than it is unlikely.