For a while it looked as if the kid pitchers might save the season and even make a deep October run more feasible. But now, with a Wild Card berth slipping away from the Mets, the instant success of their three rookies in recent weeks is beginning to look more like a consolation prize of sorts for what suddenly looms as a disappointing finish.
Albeit an important one, to be sure.
That is, if the Mets’ collapse leaves them out of the postseason, at least they would go into the offseason feeling as if they have the makings of a dominant starting rotation next year and beyond.
Such is the sense of hope the trio of Nolan McLean, Brandon Sproat, and Jonah Tong provide for Mets fans in what otherwise could be a long winter of demanding answers from David Stearns as to what went wrong this season.
"If they don’t get there, there’s no way to sugarcoat it," an MLB scout said on Monday. "With their payroll and the high expectations, missing a six-team postseason would be a major failure. But those young pitchers would give them something to hang their hat on as far as changing the conversation.
"They’ve been impressive, to different degrees. You need to see more but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that potentially they give you a high-ceiling nucleus for a starting rotation."
That’s the consensus opinion from scouts and evaluators I spoke to in recent days, as well as former pitchers Ron Darling and Dan Plesac, for this story after McLean, Sproat, and Tong have lived up to the hype as highly-touted prospects in recent weeks.
Without them, especially McLean, the Mets almost certainly would be out of the Wild Card race, as the rest of the rotation has fallen apart, due to injury and underperformance.
For that matter, if the Mets do still find a way into that third Wild Card spot, Darling didn’t hesitate when I asked him on Sunday at Citi Field about who the starters should be in a Wild Card series.
"McLean is the best option and Sproat is right behind him," Darling said. "Maybe (David) Peterson would get the nod just because of the experience, but the question you have to ask, if you’re being honest and not trying to do some tactical BS, is who gives you the best chance to win. Right now it’s the young guys.
"With McLean it’s obvious, but Sproat has impressed me too. I thought he was going to be Spencer Strider, 100 percent on every pitch, gripping it and ripping it. There’s a lot more nuance as far as the art of pitching, that I’m really happy to see."
Darling referred to McLean’s impact as "obvious," and indeed his performance to this point, with his 1.27 ERA in seven starts speaks for itself. But it’s the way he pitches, combining mound presence with his ability to create movement with various pitches, that has so many observers falling hard for him.
Plesac, for example, pitched in the big leagues for 18 years. And he’s been an analyst at MLB Network for 17 years, breaking down success and failure on a nightly basis, so he’s pretty much seen it all. Yet he’s so captivated by McLean that he gets some ribbing for it from his colleagues.
"From the first time I saw him pitch I was ultra-impressed," Plesac said by phone recently. "One time on our show I was going on about him to the point where (host) Greg Amsinger says, 'Geez, you’ve got a man-crush on this guy.'
"I just love everything about the way he pitches, his poise, his ability to throw breaking balls behind in the count, his slow heartbeat that keeps the game from speeding up on him. He is so advanced for a guy who just got to the big leagues. As a former pitcher, he’s the guy I want on the mound in a big game."
To that end, Darling makes note of McLean’s background as an all-around athlete good enough to be recruited as a quarterback by Oklahoma State, where he red-shirted at the position for one year before deciding to play only baseball – as both a position player and pitcher.
"His maturity on the field stands out," Darling said. "There’s something to be said for a kid who played big-time football as a quarterback, a leadership position. He has a presence about him that you don’t see often for a guy who just reached the big leagues."
Scouts I spoke to echoed such sentiments.
"He’s a scout’s dream," was the way one put it. "You don’t need a radar gun to evaluate him. He throws hard but he doesn’t chase velocity. His ability to spin the ball separates him but he also gets great movement on his two-seamer. He knows what he’s doing out there, setting up hitters, pitching to spots. He’s fun to watch."
As such, the Mets might just have a true No. 1 starter for years to come. Sproat doesn’t generate quite as much excitement from observers, but he too has elite stuff, and as Darling noted, has shown nuance, demonstrating an ability to change speeds and throw his breaking stuff for strikes, in addition to his upper-90s fastball velocity.
Speaking of both Sproat and McLean, Darling said, "At their level of experience, these guys can spin it as well as I’ve ever seen. David Cone was the best guy I ever saw at being able to spin the ball, and I’m hesitant to put them in that category already but they remind me of him."
And then there’s Tong, the youngest of the three rookies, at age 22, with only two starts at Triple-A before being called up. His inexperience has shown at times, to the point where he had that rough start against the Texas Rangers, failing to get out of the first inning, but in that regard his strong bounce back start last week against the San Diego Padres was an important sign.
"He showed some backbone," said Plesac. "I know what that’s like, being out there as a young pitcher and nothing is working for you. The speed of the game at the big league level is so different than the minor leagues, and when you compound that with coming up late in the season in a pennant race, it’s hard.
"That’s why I was so happy to see him bounce back. I think he’s got a gigantic ceiling. It just might take him a little longer to get there than the other two guys. He has to attack the strike zone. When he does that, and he’s using all his pitches, you see the swings and misses he gets with his fastball."
Adds a scout:
"Tong has real deception with that delivery, the Tim Lincecum delivery. He’s got that big induced vertical break that everyone talks about now that gives his fastball the extra ride at the top the zone. He found out big league hitters can hit that pitch, though, if they’re sitting on it, so he needs to be able to throw his curve ball and changeup for strikes. When he does that he may be able to dominate the way he did in the minors."
All in all, then, there is plenty of reason to believe the young trio can have long-term success.
For one thing, as Plesac noted, "You watch all three of them and one thing I notice is when they miss their location, for the most part they don’t miss over the plate. They miss off the plate, to the side of the (catcher’s) glove. They’re not just spraying the ball all over the place, relying on velocity.
"Whoever has worked with them coming up through the Mets’ system, especially McLean and Sproat, they deserve a pat on the back, because those guys certainly learned how to pitch in the minor leagues. And the experience they’re getting in these high-pressure games right now, it will be invaluable for them going into next year."
So even if this season ends in failure, emergence of this young pitching may be remembered for launching a new era for the Mets. It doesn’t always work out, of course, for anyone who remembers the much-hyped Generation K of the early ‘90s, or even the 2015 staff that seemed to offer so much promise beyond the 2015 World Series.
But Darling was quick to point to the success of the 1980s, when he was part of the young pitching group that included Doc Gooden, Sid Fernandez, and Rick Aguilera, that helped usher in a championship era.
"I think the Mets are in a good spot going forward with these young pitchers," Darling said. "This organization has always had waves of good pitchers. I think that’s how people felt in ’84, and that turned into something special.
"It’s not often that they all pan out, but I wish that for these guys. They have the ability. Everybody talks about the need to make adjustments as hitters see you more, but I never felt like I had to make adjustments. I felt like if I took care of my own house, my stuff was good enough, and these guys should feel the same way. The hitter should be inconsequential to these guys if they execute pitches — that’s how good their stuff is.
"I mean, right now, you’d have to see all three of them in the rotation next year."
That’s an enticing thought. It’s also worth remembering that Christian Scott showed similar promise as a rookie in 2024 before needing Tommy John surgery, and could be part of that high-ceiling future as well.
With that in mind, an executive from an AL team made perhaps the most salient point about the big-picture state of the Mets, regardless of what happens in this final week of the season.
"More than ever," the exec said, "the most precious commodity in the game is young, home-grown starting pitching, and to have three young guys come up at the same time and get results in high-leverage games and show the potential for long-term success. … that’s at the top of every organization’s wish list."
