Going into the trade deadline, the Mets had a farm system in the bottom half of the league and David Stearns was tasked with improving that. In total, the Mets traded nine players and acquired 13 players.
In those trades, the Mets got a top-100 prospect in Jefferson Rojas, a borderline top-100 prospect in Sammy Stafura, a helium prospect in Émilien Pitre, arms with interesting pitch traits in Gabe Davis, Gary Gill Hill and Luke Gabrysh, big-time power from Billy Amick, buy-low injured players in Cole Mathis and Bruin Agbayani, a former top-ish organization prospect in Aidan Smith (also recent helium), an elite defender in John Spikerman and a close-to-majors reliever Zach Franklin. They also picked up Chayce McDermott in a minor trade only a year after he was a top-five prospect in the Orioles’ system.
Jefferson Rojas. Photo Credit: Binghamton Rumble Ponies
Let’s take a look at the Mets’ updated top 50 prospects with preseason rankings in parentheses when applicable:
- Jefferson Rojas, INF, Double-A Binghamton (Clay Homes/Tyrone Taylor trade)
- Mitch Voit, 2B/SS, Double-A Binghamton (No. 10)
- Jonah Tong, RHP, Triple-A Syracuse (No. 3)
- Sammy Stafura, SS, High-A Brooklyn (Luke Weaver trade)
- Jonathan Santucci, LHP, Triple-A Syracuse (No. 12)
- Elian Peña, SS, Low-A St. Lucie (N0. 8)
- Zac Thornton, LHP, Majors (No. 16)
- Jack Wenninger, RHP, Triple-A Syracuse (No. 7)
- Wandy Asigen, SS, Dominican Summer League (No. 14)
- Émilien Pitre, 2B, Double-A Binghamton (Freddy Peralta trade)
- Aidan Smith, OF, High-A Brooklyn (Freddy Peralta trade)
- Jacob Reimer, 1B/3B, Double-A Binghamton (No. 6)
- Ryan Clifford, 1B/COF, Triple-A Syracuse (No. 5)
- Nick Morabito, OF, Triple-A Syracuse (No. 15)
- Aiden Robbins, OF, Low-A St. Lucie
- Cole Mathis, 1B/3B, High-A Brooklyn (David Peterson trade)
- Randy Guzman, 1B/3B/COF, High-A Brooklyn (No. 17)
- Daviel Hurtado, LHP, High-A Brooklyn (No. 25)
- Billy Amick, 1B/3B, Double-A Binghamton (A.J. Minter trade)
- Gary Gill Hill, RHP, Double-A Brooklyn (Peralta trade)
- Nate Lavender, LHP, Majors (No. 44)
- Chris Suero, C/1B/LF, Double-A Binghamton (No. 13)
- Will Watson, RHP, Rehab assignment (No. 9)
- Nicolas Carreno, LHP, High-A Brooklyn (UR)
- Carson Wiggins, RHP, Not assigned yet
- Eli Serrano III, OF, Rehab assignment (No. 11)
- Gabe Davis, RHP, Double-A Binghamton (Huascar Brazobán trade)
- Luke Gabrysh, RHP, High-A Brooklyn (Brooks Raley trade)
- Shane Sdao, LHP, Not assigned yet
- Yovanny Rodriguez, C, Low-A St. Lucie (N0. 29)
- R.J. Gordon, RHP, Double-A Binghamton (N0. 23)
- Jonathan Pintaro, RHP, Majors (No. 30)
- Dylan Ross, RHP, Triple-A Syracuse (No. 20)
- Marco Vargas, INF, Double-A Binghamton (No. 24)
- Bruin Agbayani, INF, Injured list (Minter trade)
- Jose Chirinos, RHP, High-A Brooklyn (UR)
- Cleiner Ramirez, OF, DSL (No. 43)
- Antonio Jimenez, INF, High-A Brooklyn (No. 21)
- Daiverson Gutierrez, C, High-A Brooklyn (N0. 26)
- Zach Franklin, RHP, Triple-A (Huascar Brazobán trade)
- Nick Lorusso, 1B/3B, Triple-A Syracuse
- Channing Austin, RHP, Double-A Binghamton
- John Spikerman, OF, High-A Brooklyn (Raley trade)
- Joel Lara, RHP, Low-A St. Lucie
- Emilio Obispo, RHP, Low-A St. Lucie
- Vladi Gomez, UT, Low-A St. Lucie
- Jose Ramos, OF, Triple-A Syracuse
- Bryce Jenkins, RHP, Double-A Binghamton
- Corey Collins, 1B, Double-A Binghamton
- Ben Simon, RHP, Triple-A Syracuse (No. 47)
A few of the players I left off the list because they’ve missed significant recent time due to injury: RHP Calvin Ziegler (he is back pitching right now), RHP Irving Cota, RHP Peter Kussow, RHP Ryan Lambert, LHP Felipe De La Cruz, RHP Joander Suarez, RHP Frank Camarillo, INF Boston Baro, RHP Nathan Hall, RHP Jace Hampson, RHP Cam Tilly and OF Edward Lantigua.
It looks like Stearns and company improved a bottom third farm system to a middle of the pack system with the early returns from the trade deadline. The system still might not have a large contingent of Top 100 guys, but the overall depth of the group is much stronger than it was pre-deadline.
