This is the second year where we are walking through the previous season’s Baseball America’s Top Prospect handbook, looking at the all the Mets to see how they are developing against Baseball America’s Projections.
You have probably heard of Ryder Ryan for a couple of reasons. First, compared to many prospects on this list, he’s close to getting a chance in the major. Second, the real reason you’ve heard of him, he was overly scrutinized after the Jay Bruce trade. He wasn’t ranked high in the Cleveland system, Mets fans were hoping to get a lot for a player approaching 30 homers and instead it looked like a salary dump. So Ryan got a lot of attention.
Ryan was a hitter in high school, switching to pitching in his senior year when he showed the serious gas he could through and has spent minor league ball working on his slider. BA in 2019 praised him for his fastball’s speed, spin rate and his 3/4 arm slot all of which contribute to swings and misses.
2017 Columbia: 8 G, 13.0 innings, 2.08 ERA, 0.846 WHIP
2018 Binghamton: 26 G, 32.2 innings, 4.13 ERA, 1.133 WHIP
2019 Binghamton: 25 G, 44.1 innings, 3.05 ERA, 1.263 WHIP
BA ended their Ryan write up with “The Mets have toyed with the idea of moving Ryan to the rotation or at the very least using him as a mult-inning reliever. He is on track for a big league debut in late 2019 or 2020”. Most of this came true. The Mets did increase the length of his outings, giving him 2 starts, although probably inconclusive if he is going to be a multi-inning reliever.
While he didn’t make his debut last year, this would be the appropriate year, at age 25, to move him to Syracuse and at that point he could get called up at any time. All he needs is a hot stretch to coincide when the Mets need a reliever, which is a matter of “when” not “if” and we could see Ryan as a result.
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