Yankees give former top NY Mets prospect his 4th DFA since September debut

Maybe Dom Hamel wishes he was taken in the Rule 5 Draft back when he was available two winters ago. Mike Vasil was the New York Mets pitching prospect who ended up going to the Philadelphia Phillies on that December day, later traded to the Tampa Bay Rays, and finally dealt to the Chicago White Sox. He ended up in their bullpen for the full year, pitching well as a long man.

Hamel had a much different experience. He grinded it out in Triple-A for another season and made his MLB debut in a relief appearance in September. Shortly after, he was DFA’d by the Mets. He couldn’t have imagined it happening three more times in such a short span of time.

Hamel went from the Mets to the Baltimore Orioles to the Texas Rangers and finally to the New York Yankees. The Yankees have DFA’d him to make room for another waiver claim.

Dom Hamel is back on the waiver wire, representing 3 teams and not pitching for any of them

Waiver claims can be fun, but gosh, when you have minor league options you’d think a team would stick with you for a little bit. Not Hamel, apparently. He has been with three different organizations since his Mets debut and logged 0 innings for them. The craziness of the waiver wire is passing him through the entire league with no end in sight.

Turning 27 in early March and with an ERA over 5.00 in parts of two seasons in Triple-A, we can understand why there isn’t much excitement to keep Hamel around. He’s not making anyone’s major league roster. Surely, he can find a role in Triple-A and shift toward becoming a longman the same way Vasil did for the White Sox, right?

Regarded as a top 10 Mets prospect as recently as 2023, we shouldn’t expect any kind of reunion. The Mets have plenty of pitchers stashed on the depth chart already. Unless he manages to become a free agent, revisiting him and asking Hamel to occupy a 40-man roster spot makes little sense. The Mets know him better than anyone else. They had their chance. They moved on.

Hamel is part of a 2021 Mets draft class that hasn’t achieved a whole lot. Fifth-round pick Christian Scott is the shining light. A few others are still with the organization but not top prospects. Several others, like Kumar Rocker whom the team failed to sign and Carson Seymour have already been traded.

He’ll pitch somewhere in 2026. At this rate, he might want to hope for free agency and sign with a foreign team. It can’t be fun getting no shot to pitch for these teams and have them give up on you already. Flu in a daycare gets passed around less than Hamel has.