Steve Sica- Reviewing the Mets First Round Draft History

The MLB Draft Lottery will take place later tonight. The Mets currently sit as the 17th overall slot. Unless the Mets get over tremendous odds and land a pick in the top-six (less than a 5% chance) their pick, by virtue of the luxury tax, will drop down ten spots to the 27th overall pick.

The MLB Draft isn’t for another seven more months, around the MLB All-Star game, but by later tonight, we’ll have more of a sense of what players will be available for the Mets to select in their slot. Before we start looking at some way too early mock drafts, let’s take a look at how the Mets have fared with their last five first round draft picks.

2025: TWP Mitch Voit (38th Overall Selection)

After getting their pick bumped down by ten slots, the Mets used their first round pick on University of Michigan product, Mitch Voit. Drafted as a two-way player, Voit, was only used as an infielder during his short time in St. Lucie. 

During his senior year at Michigan, he batted .346 with an OPS of 1.140 and had 14 home runs and collected 60 RBIs. Voit has yet to show off that power in his brief 22 game stint with St. Lucie this year, but he has shown something else. His blazing speed. Voit stole 20 bases and was caught just one time. 

Voit is another in the line of what is starting to become a trend in the Mets' draft strategy. Contact hitters, with speed, who know how to work a count and draw as many walks as they do hits. It’s still far too early to tell how this pick has panned out.

2024: OF Carson Benge (19th Overall Selection) 

What more is there left to say about Carson Benge? After the season he had in 2025, he’s proven time and time again why the Mets made him their first round selection in 2024. The Oklahoma State University product tore apart High-A and Double-A pitching all season long. At just 22 years old, his OPS sat at .978 in Double-A, a league that has humbled many players in the past. 

Benge is ranked as one of the Mets best prospects going into 2026, and often seen as one of the best outfield prospects in the sport. He made the Futures Game roster in 2025, and is projected to join the big club as early as the summer of 2026. Benge is one of the most exciting prospects in their system, and for a team that’s struck out on a lot of first round draft picks in the past, Benge looks to buck that trend.

2023: SS Colin Houck: (32nd Overall Selection)

For the third year in a row, the Mets saw their first round slot fall ten spots down. At the 32nd pick, the Mets drafted Colin Houck out of high school from the Atlanta suburbs. Houck struggled in his first full season with St. Lucie in 2024. Batting just .206 with 171 strikeouts. His prospect stock took a hit and barely made it onto the top-30 Met prospect list as 2025 began.

Houck though improved mightily on his second go-around in St. Lucie. Through 62 games, he batted .252 with an OPS of .812. That was enough to earn him a promotion to High-A Brooklyn, which no doubt pleased the Mets brass that their first round pick was moving up the ranks.

While he struggled in High-A, it’s important to remember that Houck is still just 21-years-old, and even though it’s been two full seasons, I still think it’s too early to close the book entirely on him.

2022: C Kevin Parada (11th Overall Selection)

With their highest pick in five years, the Mets selected Kevin Parada a catcher out of Georgia Tech. There was plenty of hype around him after his senior year where he batted .360 and mashed his way to an OPS of 1.162. Unfortunately for him and the Mets, those numbers never translated into success at the MiLB level.

In four minor league seasons, Parada has batted just .237, put up a slugging percentage of .399 and an OPS of .720. Now in the organization for four years, he’s eligible to be taken away from the Mets via the Rule 5 draft. So by this time tomorrow, he might not even be a Met. If this does wind up happening, there’s sadly no doubt the Parada will be seen as a first round bust for the Met organization. 

2022: SS Jett Williams (14th Overall Selection)

Kumar Rocker was drafted by the Mets in the first round in 2021 but didn’t sign. So the Mets received two first round picks in 2022. They spent it on Jett Williams and it’s paid off well so far. 

Standing at just 5 '7, Williams makes up for his lack of height with a tremendous amount of solid contact, great plate discipline and speed on the bases. In four MiLB seasons, Williams has an OPS of .827, has drawn 206 walks to 290 strikeouts, and has stolen 90 bases while being caught just 19 times. In 2025, he passed the daunting test of Double-A ball with flying colors. In 96 games with Binghamton, Jett put up an OPS of .868 with 10 home runs, 32 stolen bases, and 37 RBIs.

Jett, like Benge, is in the Mets’ top-five prospects and is often seen as a key member of the Mets’ future plans. It’s likely that he could be the first of this group of recent draft picks to make his Citi Field debut. 

The Mets haven’t had a position player drafted in the first round make a substantial impact at the Major League level since they drafted Michael Conforto in 2014. Jett has all the tools and potential to end that drought.

The draft lottery is the first step to finding out who the future of your Major League team will be. By tonight, the Mets will find out where they’ll be drafting and so will begin the seven months of scouting, analyzing, and predicting who the next big prospect will enter the Mets’ system.