Thursday Thought: Underrated Mets to target in your fantasy baseball draft

The New York Mets have several players that should be targets for fantasy baseball players. Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer, Pete Alonso, Francisco Lindor, Edwin Diaz, and Starling Marte are the obvious ones, but there are some players lower in the rankings that can bring value to your fantasy roster.

Let’s take a look at some of the underrated Mets you should target in your fantasy baseball leagues.

First, one condition: to be considered for this list, the player must be ranked below 200th overall on ESPN’s fantasy platform as of Saturday, March 12th. Rankings will be updated between now and Opening Day, so they will change. 

One thing to keep in mind is knowing your league’s scoring system. If your league doesn’t have walks as a stat, don’t draft somebody solely because they walk a lot. If your league doesn’t have holds, don’t draft a setup guy solely because of that. Knowing your league’s scoring system is imperative.

Player 1) Mark Canha 

Reason to target him: extra-base hits and walks

Mark Canha comes in at 225th overall. He is a guy that is known for walking (77 walks in 2021, .387 OBP) and he gets a decent amount of extra-base hits (22 walks, four triples, and 17 homers in 2021). The combination of 40ish extra-base hits and lots of walks is pretty good value for outside the top 200.

Player 2) Eduardo Escobar

Reason to target him: power

Eduardo Escobar is ranked 293rd overall. He drops this low because he doesn’t get a ton of hits, but more than a third of them are extra-base hits. In 2021, he got 139 hits. 26 of those were doubles, five were triples, and 28 were homers. That’s 42% of his hits going for extra bases. In most leagues, extra-base hits are worth more points than singles, so this is great value.

Player 3) Tylor Megill

Reason to target him: breakout potential

Tylor Megill is ranked right after Escobar at 294th overall. Many believe Megill may be in for a breakout season after impressing many in his rookie season. “Baby deGrom,” as many people are calling him, has a firm fastball that averages 95mph. He pairs that with a good changeup against lefties and slider against righties. He averaged better than a strikeout per inning, so if he can improve is control a little bit more and give up less hard contact, he’ll be in good shape.

Player 4) Trevor May

Reason to target him: holds and strikeouts

Trevor May is ranked 365th overall. As the primary setup guy, he will get some save opportunities, but he will mainly be the 8th inning guy racking up holds and strikeouts. He was just shy of 12 K/9 in 2021, and there’s no reason to think he can’t do that again.

Player 5) Seth Lugo

Reason to target him: multi-inning outings/holds

Seth Lugo is ranked at 389th overall, and this has the potential to be the best draft pick of the bunch. Lugo is capable of going multiple innings, which is a huge advantage in fantasy, particularly in leagues that have starter limits. He’s also capable of being a setup man that will get holds. Either way, he will get strikeouts too. 

Prospects: Brett Baty #2146 and Mark Vientos #2032

Prospects are ranked very low since it’s unknown when they’ll come up and how they’ll perform during their first stint in The Show. If you like stashing prospects, Brett Baty and Mark Vientos will likely be up at some point this year. Vientos will almost definitely get the call first, which makes him the one to target so you’re not wasting a roster spot for that long. 

What other Mets are you targeting in your fantasy draft?