Photo: Peter McClelland
The calendar is about to flip from January to February, which means one thing: we’re supposed to get baseball at some point within the next couple of weeks. The current MLB lockout is throwing a wrench into those plans at the moment, but that’s not stopping people from releasing their top prospect rankings for the 2022 season.
Our own Mike Mayer released his top 50 New York Mets prospects last week, and now Keith Law of The Athletic — and friend of the Get Metsmerized podcast — released his top 100 prospect list on Monday morning. You can read the full rankings here (subscription required), but there are five Mets prospects who cracked the list. Some are dudes we expected to see and a couple are ones some probably didn’t expect:
#8: Francisco Álvarez, C
#40: Ronny Mauricio, SS
#41: Brett Baty, 3B
#71: Mark Vientos, 3B/LF/1B
#100: Alex Ramirez, OF
When it comes to Álvarez, Mauricio, and Baty, there are really no surprises that they each landed within the top 50. This trio of prospects has been talked about/hyped up for quite some time now (and deservedly so). The more surprising entrants into this club are Vientos and Ramirez.
Vientos — who we just saw pummeling baseballs in the cage recently — put himself on the map with a powerful 2021 campaign in the Mets organization. The 21-year-old landed in Double-A Binghamton to start the year and eventually earned a promotion to Triple-A Syracuse after slugging 22 homers in 306 plate appearances. He hit another three after the promotion to finish with 25 taters in 349 total trips to the plate. He also started getting some outfield work later in the season to improve his versatility.
Ramirez, a 19-year-old from the Dominican Republic, got his first taste of minor league baseball this past year with Single-A St. Lucie. He held his own to the tune of a .258/.326/.384 line with 24 extra-base hits (15 doubles, four triples, five home runs), 35 RBI, 41 runs scored, and 16 stolen bases.
Also, as Joe DeMayo of SNY mentioned, the Mets have six top 90-100 picks in the upcoming MLB Draft, along with the recent international signing of Simón Juan. So, what was once a pretty thin farm system is starting to look much better again, and in short order.
