Let's make this one short and (maybe sweet)
It is hard not to be optimistic about the state of the Mets farm system after the most recent draft and David Stearns' deadline trades. The optimism is warranted by the performances of the new additions thus far. Indeed, what had been a completely dormant group of minor league affiliates has sprung to life as if each team had experienced a blood transfusion.
Great and exciting. Even the Mets themselves appear to have been rejuvinated by the injection of new talent backing them up and in some cases nipping at their heels. Arguably, the future is brighter than it was a month ago. It may even be bright: full stop.
You may recall that while the minor league performane was in fact dreadful for much of the season, I held the contrarian position that the farm system had done a very good job of producing major league talent over the past four or so years.
Baty, Vientos, Alvarez, Mauricio, McLean, Scott, Ewing and Benge have all spent considerable time at the major league level, the last four establishing themselves as potential longterm solutions even as the first four have fallen short of expectations.
Alvarez will stick around until one of the handful of promising catchers in the system replaces him. Mauricio is a wild card. Vientos and Baty are likely to be shown the door.
At worst, it looks like the Mets are batting around .500 or so on the performance of their prospects that have made it to the majors.
If the next group performs no worse -- and there is a reason to believe right now that they will perform significantly better -- the optimism and enthusiasm of the last month will have been well founded.
Me? My natural instinct is to be cautious about projecting the future -- especially when it comes to teams I root for, whatever the sport.
So in the name of tempering enthusiasm, I decided to take a look at how the top prospects of the four teams we aspire to be mentioned in the same paragraph with have fared over the past five years in projecting talent at the next level.
So I looked at the consensus top prospects of the Dodgers, Yankees, Braves and Brewers from 2020-2025 to see what has become of them in the hopes that it might inform our view about what to expect from our own top prospects.
In this post I focus on the Dodgers and the Yankees. Next time I take up the Braves and Brewers, and see if we can make any useful projections about our recent treasure trove of talented farmhands. Or if we can draw any meaningful conclusions at all.
This is what I discovered about the Dodgers and Yankees
Dodgers
2020: Gavin Lux (SS/2B). Lux was the Dodgers number 1 prospect and ranked in the top 5 entering the 2020 season. He was traded to the Reds in 2025, who in January of this year traded him to the Tampa Bay Rays. He has not played in 2026 due to injury -- which apparently has not hurt the Rays who are currently in first place in the Eastern Conference of the American League. In 2024, his last year with the Dodgers, Lux batted .251, hit 10 HRs and drove in 50 runs. That would place him above Semien, but far below what we are expecting from Voit and Petri both!
2021: Keibert Ruiz (C). After replacing Lux as the number 1 prospect in the Dodgers farm system, when Lux was promoted to the majors, Ruiz was traded in 2021 to the Nationals as part of the package for Max Scherzer and Trea Turner. He has proven to be an average defensive catcher for the Nationals, and is hitting better this year than he has in any year previously but has managed to hit only 8 HR. He is marginally better defensively than Alvarez, a significantly better hitter this year but not a power threat. He wouldn't make the current Mets roster as either the starting or back-up catcher.
2022: Diego Cartaya (C) Cartaya replaced Ruiz as the Dodgers number 1 prospect (and played the same position), but was traded to the Minnesota Twins for a minor league pitcher. The Twins let him go in 2025 and he signed a minor league contract with San Francisco Giants who released him at the end of April this year. He is currently a free agent. He shouldn't be expecting a call from the Mets.
2023: Michael Busch (C/INF): Busch was traded to the Cubs as Freeman was blocking him at 1B. In return the Dodgers received two minor leaguers and Busch had a very good season in 2025 and has been solid if unspectacular in 2026. He would likely be starting over Young on the Mets, but it would be close on the merits, but nevertheless decisive.
2024: Dalton Rushing (C/OF): What's with all these catchers? By 2024 Rushing was the consensus number 1 catching prospect in baseball. (Replacing, guess who? Alvarez of course). He reached the majors playing for the Dodgers in 2025 and played about 75 games this year prior to being sidelined by injury. He backs up Will Smith, one of the best in baseball, and has been solid but not special. He was hitting around .250 and had very modest OBP and slugging averages. He's a better defender than Alvarez, has comparable HRs in many fewer games and more RBI in fewer games. I might prefer him to Alvarez, but neither of them strikes me as a future all-star.
2025: Josue De Paula (RHP / OF). Can't count Sasaki here, so the top rated player was DePaula, who is from Brooklyn NY, and related to the Marbury and Telfair cousins both of whom attended my High School, Abraham Lincoln. He's a speedster with power and very much in the mold of Carson Benge. Right now he is killing it in AA ball. He's likely to make it to the majors sometime next year as the Dodger outfield is aging and spotty in places. It is also not deep. Makes me wonder what both the Dodgers and the Mets were thinking offering Tucker outrageous money. I wouldn't want Tucker blocking De Paula any more than I'd want him blocking Benge.
Yankees
2021: Jasson DomÃnguez (OF): Ranked as the number 1 prospect in the Yankee organization every year from 2020-2025, Dominguez has made it to the Yankees but has performed poorly defensively and has yet to establish himself as a major league starter, let alone a cornerstone in the OF. The object of a good deal of trade rumors at thie year's deadline. The Yankees have soured pretty quickly on someone who was their consensus best prospect over the past five years! Either that or they missed something that has been pretty plain to everyone this past year -- Yankee fan or not: the guy is not an acceptable defensive outfielder.
2023: Anthony Volpe (SS): Ranked as the co-top prospect in the organization going into the 2023 season, Volpe made it to the majors after a sparkling Spring Training. He flourished quickly, but his success was short lived as he regressed both offensively and defensively over the past two seasons and has been replaced by someone else on this list. Volpe is back playing in AAA. I expect him to be a decent major leaguer, but on another team.
2023: Austin Wells (C); Like Volpe, Wells was a heralded prospect in 2023 and made his way to the big league club where he performed reasonably defensively, but has been a major disappointment offensively. He could not make the Mets roster. Whatever qualms and doubts I have about Alvarez, I wouldn't trade him for any of the players mentioned here so far. The Yankees were desperate for a replacement at the deadline and that led other teams to demand too much in return for a catcher. The Yankees would not accept the kind of overpayment that would have been necessary to find Wells' replacement. I don't blame them. They would get to the playoffs with Wells or with any reasonable replacement for him. On the other hand, no reasonable replacement for him would have been a difference maker in their chances at a WS title.
2023: Oswald Peraza (INF): With Dominguez holding down the top position most of the past five years, Peraza along with Volpe and Wells were relegated to second fiddle. Didn't do him much good, however, as he was traded in 2025 to the Angels after disappointing performance with the big club. All he could bring back was a minor league outfielder and additional bonus money for signing international players. He has struggled mightily this year and is putting up Semien numbers but at considerably less cost.
2025: George Lombard Jr. (SS/3B): Whether Lombard Jr. proves to be the next Derek Jeter, it won't take much for him to make their forget Anthony Volpe. Lombard moved quickly through the Yankees system and was called up to the big club less than a month ago to much fanfare. He has performed well enough and has provided both an offensive and defensive spark. I imagine he will stick around and may be the Yankee SS for quite some time. The most likely of this group to be a successful major leaguer.
Conclusion
I'm going to withhold judgment until we look at what the Brewers and Braves prospect projection record looks like. But what I find interesting is not just the hype around various players, but just how hard it is to predict success.
This harkens back to the second series of posts I published upon joining the crew here.
I argued then that the greatest problem organizations faced in their efforts to construct a rational roster is their inability to project performance of their minor league talent at the next level. This lack of confidence leads them to overspend on free agents and to make trades that have outcomes that vary widely. Trades should be mutually beneficial to both teams, but the level of uncertainty about expected performance leads to a level of randomness that makes the mutually beneficial scenario the outlier, not the norm.
How will our talent work out. I don't know. But as I mentioned in my earlier posts, the best way to gain confidence in the projections the FO makes is to make each stage in the minors as close as possible to what the next stage will look like: keep it continuous to the extent possible. Setting Florida aside, the Mets at least keep the weather in April and May constant from High A to AAA. It sucks for everyone! Right Tom?
And how about those dimensions?
We'll return to those issues next time.
