Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports
An MMO Fan Shot by Marc M. (Not4)
Before the 2021 season Tylor Megill wasn’t even in the Mets top 20 prospects and now he’s on the way to becoming a fixture in the rotation for the next 5-6 years.
Now to be fair, had there been a true 2020 season, he could have jumped on a lot of top prospect lists.
In his first minor league season Megill started in Low-A ball at Brooklyn and finished the season in Double-A. He threw just 71 2/3 innings. His record was an unimpressive 6-7 with a decent 3.52 ERA, but the peripherals were there. 11.6 K/9 and a K/BB ratio of 3.68.
His 5 starts at AA Binghamton in 2021 was impressive enough(14.5 K/9!) to warrant a call-up to AAA Syracuse and massive injuries led to role in a MLB rotation for a team in the playoff hunt. But how did a lackluster college career as a reliever lead to this?
Megill went undrafted out of Los Alamitos High School, but his teammate that year Jacob Nix was drafted in the 5th round. Odd, considering that Megill was ranked 97th by PerfectGame and Nix was 77th. To not even be drafted coming out of high school is extremely odd. Every other RHP in the top 100 that year was drafted coming out of high school. That’s right, every single RHP in the top 100 (and some after him) was drafted in 2014. Except for Tylor Megill. Now, not all of them signed, but they were all drafted.
Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find any high cchool stats for Megill. When he started pitching in college he was used more as a reliever than as a starter. He spent one year at Loyola Marymount before transferring to Cypress College, a community college close to home, and then his final two seasons in Arizona. He made more starts in his one season at Cypress than he did in all his other college seasons combined.
I guess college coaches saw him more as a reliever than as a starter. Because of that, he never really had a lot of opportunities to impress scouts. Having just pitched 78 innings in his junior and senior seasons combined, and coming off with a ERA around 5.00, it didn’t exactly scream “draft me!” The strikeouts were there, throwing 74 Ks but with a 1.6 WHIP.
Whatever Mets scout did his homework on Megill should be commended. Megill left high school throwing his fastball around 92 mph, and left Arizona throwing 94-95. The Mets got him to stop throwing his 2-seamer, throw the slider less and the change-up more.
The addition of the change-up as his 3rd pitch has really cemented his rise as a starter. It’s a plus pitch for him, in addition to his plus fastball and plus slider. Here are his percentile rankings compared to other top pitchers this year.
I’m not ready to call Megill elite yet, he’s thrown far too few innings and has only thrown 3 1/3 innings past the 5th inning. That’s not his fault as he really hasn’t had the chance to throw a lot of innings since his one season at Cypress Community College in 2016.
However, I am ready to declare him a member of the 2021 rotation. His only issue right now is stretching out his starts. He starts falling apart in the 5th, probably due to not being stretched out. His ERA for innings 1-4 is 2.08. His ERA in the 5th is 9.00. There’s always the possibility he can’t be stretched out as a starter, but could fall into a Seth Lugo type role in the bullpen. It’s too early to tell. Losing 2020 really hurt. Either way, I see Megill as being a pivotal pitcher for the Mets for the next few years.
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This MMO Fan Shot was contributed by diehard Mets fan Marc M (Not4).
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