A quickly revamped farm system has the Mets with a trio of prospects — Luisangel Acuna, Drew Gilbert, and Jett Williams — ranked with MLB Pipeline’s top 80 heading into the 2024 season.
David Stearns is at the helm for his first season as president of baseball operations and for a team that has opted to move away from the big-money, veteran signings of previous years, the door is cracked ajar for those trio of prospects, none of whom have hit Triple-A yet, to see the majors this year.
“I am a big believer of letting your younger players play. At times, that means that you’re going have some hiccups at the major league level,” Stearns told SNY’s Andy Martino last week, though he was alluding more toward getting the likes of Brett Baty and Mark Vientos more at-bats. “And even in New York, we have to be OK with that. We have to understand that, at times, we’re going to play young players, and they’re not going to succeed immediately. We have to be patient and if we are, we’ll be rewarded for that.”
Balancing patience and the expectation of competing for a spot in the postseason — which he has repeated throughout the winter — Stearns could very well find himself looking toward his farm system for a boost this season.
The Mets are currently slated to rely on the light-hitting but defensively-gifted Harrison Bader in center field, allowing the team to shift Brandon Nimmo from center to left. That potentially allows DJ Stewart to form a designated hitter platoon with Vientos, but that spot in the lineup has been a glaring hole for the last two seasons.
Meanwhile, second baseman Jeff McNeil and his defensive versatility to play left field is coming off a campaign in which his average dipped from a batting-champion-winning .327 in 2022 to .270 with a .711 OPS in 2023.
Stearns has always preached versatility in his players. It’s what helped him take a lower-market team in the Milwaukee Brewers and make them a perennial playoff contender…
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