I promised all of you that, as soon as the season ended,
I would breakout and post my current Top 30 prospects.
This is performance based, not players that came to the
Mets full of promise but have only produced butterscotch pudding. A perfect
example of a player that didn’t make this list is catcher Ronald Hernandez. I still like the guy, but based
on what he did in 2025, I don’t like him “top 30 guy”.
Nolan McLean, Brandon Sproat, and Jonah
Tong are not on this list. They have graduated.
I will post them in each of my weekly Observations and In
Focus posts… one player at a time… beginning with #30.
Today, we move to #23:
23. OF Randy Guzman
2025 - FCL Mets: 178-PA,
7-HR, 33-RBI, .282/.371/.474/.845
St. Lucie: 105-PA,
3-HR, 24-RBI, .333/.381/.604/.985
Randy
Enmanuel Guzman is a 20-year-old outfielder in the New York Mets' minor
league system, born on April 19, 2005, in Tenares, Dominican Republic.
Standing at 6'4" and
weighing 215 pounds, he bats and throws right-handed.
Guzman has been noted for an
impressive start to his first season stateside, particularly with the St. Lucie
Mets. His recent performances have drawn attention, with reports indicating he
was "on fire" after being promoted from the Florida Complex League
(FCL).
Guzman has also played multiple
positions, including first base, right
field, and left field, showcasing versatility.
MACK
– Guzman really burst on the scene this past season. Very little has been
written about him so far, but those days will be quickly coming to an end. Wouldn’t
it be nice if the Mets could develop a right-hand hitting outfielder?
There is a good chance he will start off the 2026 season
in A+ Brooklyn.
ETA: 2028
Mets
mailbag
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6701964/2025/10/09/mets-mailbag-center-field-upgrade/
Do you
think there is any regret with the Mets at signing Juan Soto to such an expensive and long contract? — Ian N.
Will: Not yet. It looks terrible to make the National
League Championship Series, sign Soto and then miss the playoffs. But Soto did
his job; he had a .921 OPS. They expect him to do that again and again and
again and … well, you get the idea. Based on owner Steve
Cohen’s spending and payroll, Soto’s presence shouldn’t prevent them
from signing someone else they like. I wouldn’t say that about any other owner.
Keep in mind, under Stearns, the Mets have been selective
with the shots they take when dealing with the most expensive free agents,
anyway. As for Soto’s defense, which was not good, Stearns said last December,
“We are confident that there’s a long period of time here that Juan is going to
be in right field.”
Mets
sign lefty sidearm pitcher who played college baseball at Manhattan University
MLB.com's Anthony DiComo reported the signing of Joe Jacques to a minor-league deal. He'll get an invite to major league camp, and
he'll make $800,000 if he makes the MLB club.
It's a
cool spot for Jacques to sign. He's a native of Red Bank, New Jersey, and he
played his college baseball for Manhattan University.
Jacques is
a 6-foot-4, 30-year old lefty who has a true sidearm motion.
In his
career, Jacques has appeared in 25 MLB games. He has a 5.46 ERA split between
time with the Boston Red Sox and Arizona Diamondbacks.
Jacques
has 22 MLB strikeouts in 29.2 innings.
Robert
Murray @ByRobertMurray
Yadier Molina is ready to return to baseball as
either a manager or coach, he said on Instagram.
Mack
– what a great idea would it be to hire this guy to work with Francisco Alvarez
Jon
Heyman @JonHeyman
Manny Ramirez is getting word out to all 30 teams
he’d love to serve as an MLB hitting coach. “He wants to bring his greatness to
teach the young guys,” his agent Hector Zepeda said. Credentials: 555 HRs, .312
BA, .996 OPS
Mack – let’s not stop with Molina
Ross
Jensen @RossJensen12
2. New
York Mets
Personal
t100 prospects: 5 | STS t100 prospects: 9
Hitters
rank: #4 | Pitchers rank: #1
My top
Mets prospects (non-debuted only listed)
Jett Williams (16), AAA, SS/CF, 21
Carson Benge (23), AAA, RF, 22
A.J. Ewing (46), AA, CF, 20
Jacob Reimer (57), AA, 3B, 21
Ryan Clifford (58), AAA, 1B, 21
Predicting
MLB Free Agency in 2025-26 Offseason
New York
Mets
In a
"Who will spend money in free agency?" article, the New York Mets
have become the free space in the middle of the bingo card.
They
dropped $113 million on free agents during the 2020-21 offseason, but it's more
like $450 million if you factor in trading for Francisco
Lindor and signing him to
a $341 million extension. They proceeded to spend over $250 million the
following winter, just a shade under $500 million three off-seasons ago and
over a billion dollars this past winter.
Even after
all that recent spending, you better believe there's still work to be done.
New York's
rotation is a mess, more or less one rookie who had an awesome first two months
in the bigs (Nolan McLean) and a stockpile of what probably
should be No. 4 starters. Whether it's Framber
Valdez, Ranger Suárez, Dylan Cease, Zac Gallen, Michael King or Shane
Bieber, signing at least
one of the top arms available is just about non-negotiable after the way this
team pitched over the final 3.5 months of the regular season.
With Edwin Díaz likely to opt out of the two years left on his deal while Reed Garrett is probably headed for Tommy John surgery, the bullpen might need even
more of a facelift than the rotation. If Díaz does leave, New York's best
late-inning options on hand become age-38 Brooks
Raley, age-36 Huascar Brazobán and A.J. Minter returning from a lat surgery that cost
him almost all of 2025.
Throw in Pete Alonso's free agency and the season-long issues this team had in center field,
and the Mets might be the top spender in free agency, even if they don't bother
trying to sign the projected top prize of this year's class, Kyle Tucker.
Free agency land mines and the team most likely to step
on them
https://fansided.com/mlb/free-agency-land-mines-and-the-team-most-likely-to-step-on-them
1B Pete
Alonso
Victim:
Washington Nationals
It seems
like every Hot Stove season features at least one deal that comes completely
out of nowhere, and Alonso's free agency feels like the best candidate right
now. Partly because it's hard to make heads or tails of it: On the one hand,
all he does is play 160 games a year and hit 40 homers, and you can understand
why his demands are in line with that sort of offensive production; on the
other, playing a righty first baseman who's a downright brutal defender into
his late 30s might strike teams as a bad idea.
Alonso
will certainly remain one of the game's premier sluggers in 2026 and 2027. He
wants to be paid into 2031 and 2032, though, and his is not a skill set that
feels like it'll age particularly well. And once he goes from a great bat to an
average or above-average bat, he goes from a legitimate asset to a liability in
a heartbeat. The fact that he hits righties as well as he does lefties helps
mitigate that somewhat, but still: This is not the sort of player you want to
bet on over the long haul. Maybe he takes another short-term deal with a
contender, but after two straight years of negotiations, I think he finally
opts for some certainty even if it lands closer to $20 million per year than
$30 million.
While the
Washington Nationals have a new regime in town, it's long past time for this
snail's-pace rebuild to start bearing fruit. The Nats aren't as far away from
competing as you might think, but they need another big bat to put behind CJ Abrams and James Wood, and they need to improve their
first-base situation as well. There's money to burn here, and if Alonso's free
agency drags on, Washington could get desperate and talk themselves into an
investment they might live to regret. Hey, at least it worked with Jayson Werth?
22 comments:
Could Guzman be the next…Pete Alonso…in 2028? One can daydream.
Bring in the star coaches, definitely.
Joe Jacques? As long balls fly out, I can hear Jacquesscream, MAIS, NON, MONSIEUR!!
Soto ain’t the problem. I can think of a dozen guys easily who were.
Guzman
I write next week about another posible future Mets first baseman... Yunior Amparo
Star Coaches
Right now, I would just take... coaches
Jacques
I have some thoughts about him later this week in my Dirty Laundry post
Soto
Been supportive of this signee since the get-go
Alonso had the year he did because he was batting behind Soto. There is no stat that I know of to record that, so let the next batter reap the benefits of hitting behind him. Bye Bye Alonso
I still think there is a remote chance for a 5/yr contract here
5/$145 or 4/$125 with a $30m team option or $10m buy-out
I would too Mack if he wasn't repped by BORASS
Alonso and Borass will never close a deal with an AAV over 40
Actually Joe, Boras and Cohen now have a decent relationship
i don't know how often I can post this before someone in the organization takes note of it. Here it is in two parts, first focused on Alvarez; His hitting mechanics are terrible. His sequencing is way off. You can see it in the following both visually and in the data. Let me explain. His swing always appears vicious and hard, but not especially fast, and not fast in virtue of a properly functioning sequencing. It is largely upper body action and his upper body recruits virtually no energy from the ground or his lower body. It is one of the most unfluid looking swings I have ever seen. Relatedly, when he went down to the minors his bat speed was actually below where it had been in previous years. When he came back up it sped up BUT NOT through better sequencing, but through brute force. That brute force makes one incredibly vulnerable in ways someone knowledgeable about sequencing could explain at length. You don't solve a sequencing problem by swinging harder: thus, if you look you will see him as a paradigm of powerless effort producing swings. More general point. In the minors, you have to teach correct fundamentals, because if you don't these failures catch up as the quality of the pitching improves. In the pre-Cohen era, there was little if any emphasis on these basics of correct body movement, and so the stronger/physically more advanced players showed very well in part because their skill set and attributes were superior by and large to the pitching competition. The gap narrowed as they worked their way up and in a case like Alvarez's it has been exposed. Add to that an inability to recognize pitches and a stance that does two things: it is built to enable him to swing in the inefficient manner in which he does but it has the consequence of making him incredibly vulnerable to anything with good movement down and away. He simply can't cover those pitches. There has been a change post Cohen that is not adequately discussed. And that is the quality of fundamentals in movement being taught earlier in careers and that is part of what explains the number of quality hitters in the minors. So it is also true that these players like Benge got appropriate swing mechanics training in college. The gap closing between hitting and pitching will always occur as you head up, but if you have proper mechanics, you can learn to wait longer, learn to focus on reading spin, etc. and you put brains to mechanics and hard work and you can increase likelihood of a decent career as a hitter. If you take a lot of kids just out of high school and don't educate them about mechanics early, which is important to do because they get to learn how to move efficiently against relatively inferior pitching talent which reinforces their willingness to work on fundamentals, they will revert to what has worked for them in terms of pure athleticism and their failure to learn how to move correctly will ultimately undermine their careers.
How about teaching kids and young adults to collect energy into the bat and then how to efficiently deliver that energy to the ball before working on launch angle. It looks like some version of that strategy is at work in the minors now and will have dividends. Can't start soon enough, and in all honesty, what Alvarez needs is a reprogramming of his swing mechanics. In contrast Beatty has done a good job on several fronts. Two issues remain for him at this point. His swing itself is a bit too long so he has to start it too early which robs him of precious time to identify pitches and makes it difficult to catch up on elite fastballs especially high in the zone and movement down and away. Good mechanics though. Second, he hits a lot of ground balls so there will be a natural pressure to get him to change his angle of attack, which I view as a mistake. That will affect his tilts and turns. Shorten the swing a bit; more time to recognize pitches, will lead to better contact fewer swings and misses and more line drives. He's got a natural doubles hitter swing and more than enough of them will find their way over the fence.
In the second half of this comment, are you talking about Baty or are you staying with Alvarez?
Welcome Jules...are you sure you're not my brother Robert in disguise...lol.
Mack, I might have an ally...hehe. That's exactly what I used to say about Alverez a while back....but in a lot less detail.
Great comments
We have a steadfast rule here. No responding to comments for the first 10 times a reader leaves them
(only kidding)
As I've been told, Alvarez isn't the sharpest chisel in the toolbox. AND most the various adjustments made were by him without warning to the coaches are him.
Lastly, it seems the one person he listened to is Luis Torrens
The Mets need both a catcher and hitter coach that he respects and "speaks his language "
Lastly
Like other intelligent writers here, they tend to leave their good stuff only to comments.
The best way to get this good shit out there is a column on the site.
Tom started as a reader. Ernest started as a reader. Reese started... well, you get the point.
Please consider
Can be whenever you want or a weekly
MACK
Between you and Jules everybody smells like five day old fish
Can we hire Jules as hitting coach.
Jules, this is awesome stuff! I’m diving into this & will be adding some thoughts on Vientos as well. The concept of full body swing analysis is so spot on - it goes beyond athleticism & is a sophisticated & complex as the pitching lab work.
This opens a deeper window into how the best teams are drilling into the next level of analytics for the sport. Thank goodness we have someone like Steve Cohen, who has made BILLIONS perfecting this concept in the financial markets. Figuring out how to capitalize on this is the long game that Cohen & Stearns are playing. It will take time but they can also spend until it reaches critical mass to pay off on itself.
Next generation of coaches need to really get this. Look who they are hiring; already moving in that direction.
Hey Mack, I might turn my build
On this (plus Vientos) into something stand-alone. Lmk how to publish an attempt at an article/post. (I am NOT a writer :))
See?
Here's another one.
Hmmm - maybe this slipped past everyone, but I am going to jump on it. If Yadier Molina is ready to come back as a coach, the Mets should be first on the list bidding for his services. As one of the greatest defensive catchers in the game and a spanish-speaker, he could do wonders for Francisco Alvarez.
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