Tong was selected with the 13th pick of the 7th round (209th overall) in the 2022 draft and signed for a $226K bonus equivalent to slot value. His background was unusual, to say the least; he pitched for an Ontario prep school as a Junior, transferred to the Georgia Premier Academy in his draft year, and also appeared in the 2022 draft league. That made him an older prep – 19 on draft day – which is something of a negative demographic marker. Nevertheless, the Mets brought in on the 6’1” right hander
with a funky delivery who was already flashing impressive IVB characteristics on his primary offering.
Needless to say, that investment has paid off. Tong had an unremarkable and fairly limited 2023 season, tossing only 21 innings across the complex and St. Lucie as he focused on bulking up physically. He started 2024 in High-A and promptly exploded, blitzing across three levels of the minors, throwing 113 innings across 25 starts, posting a 34.1% K% and a 24.1% K-BB%, and tallying a 3.03 FIP backed by a 2.33 FIP. That earned him a spot on Baseball Prospectus’ 2025 top-101 at 72, though other outlets left him off their lists.
That was a pretty severe miss. Tong has been even better in 2025 in the upper levels of the minors, with a 1.43 ERA (not a typo) across 113.2 innings. He’s racked up the most strikeouts (179) and best K-BB% (29.9%) of any pitcher in affiliated ball. Unsurprisingly, he’s rocketed up prospect rankings as a result, checking in at 20th on Baseball Prospectus’s midseason top-50 and 42nd on Baseball America’s most recent top-100 update. Quite frankly, that latter ranking seems quite low to me; I think Tong is both a clear top-20 prospect and the best prospect in a very strong Mets system.
Tong’s arsenal has been devastatingly simple this year. He blows his 19-vert fastball in the mid-to-upper 90s by batters, then leaves them flailing with a Vulcan change w/ 10 MPH of velo separation and impressive movement characteristics of its own. It’s been such an effective combination that batters have swung and missed at his changeup more than 50% of the time in the minors this season (for the second time in this article, not a typo). He’s experimented with different breaking ball shapes but to this point has not settled on one that’s been particularly effective. In his defense, he hasn’t needed it, but this is something to watch going forward.
That’s a nice arsenal on its own, but what makes it really play up is Tong’s funky delivery. The closest comp you’ll hear is Tim Lincecum, and there is definitely a pronounced tilt to the operation towards the first-base side of the diamond. Because of this, his release point – which is close to a standard 3/4 delivery relative to his torso – winds up almost vertical. Check out Michael Donodeo’s write-up for an explanation of how this works physically, but the long and the short of it is that batters wind up expecting very different pitch movement from what they actually. Combine that with the raw stuff, which again is very very good in a vacuum, and you get the sort of results Tong has delivered so far this season.
I wouldn’t pay too much mind to those wringing their hands about the violence of Tong’s delivery (who cares, he repeats it fine), the long term health outlook (Tim Lincecum won two Cy Young awards before his body gave out), or the lack of third pitch (pretty confident Tong will find one, even if it’s not before the end of the season). That said, Tong’s overall command profile is the one sore spot here. He can still lose the zone at times and actually has a fairly low zone percentage on his fastballs in the minors this year. That’s not been a problem to date since guys will still chase it, but he may find that strategy somewhat less effective in the big leagues. It’s also possible the combination of his delivery and stuff profile is good enough that it doesn’t matter, but this is something to monitor.
Don’t let that wart distract you, however, this is the Mets’ best pitching prospect to debut since Noah Syndergaard in May of 2015. There’s a very good chance that Tong is a highly effective rotation piece for the Mets down the stretch here, one who should strike out a ton of batters despite walking a few too many and perhaps fading late in games given his lack of a consistent third offering. In time, he has the potential to grow to be one of the best pitchers in the game. Get excited.
