Ryan Clifford, a North Carolina native, attended high school at Leesville Road High School, a public school in Raleigh for his freshman and sophomore seasons. It quickly became apparent that he was a big fish in a small pond, as he posted a .526 with 4 home runs over 21 games in his freshman year, and hit .692 with 3 home runs over 4 games in his sophomore year, winning the 2020 Gatorade Player of the Year (North Carolina) Award for the COVID-shortened season in the process.
Overview
Name: Ryan Clifford Position:
1B/OF Born: 07/20/2003 (Age 22 season in 2026) Height: 6’3” Weight: 200 lbs. Bats/Throws: L/L Acquired: Trade (August 1, 2023: Traded by the Houston Astros with Drew Gilbert to the New York Mets for Justin Verlander) 2025 Stats: 105 G, 367 AB, .243/.355/.493, 89 H, 18 2B, 1 3B, 24 HR, 63 BB, 113 K, 4/6 SB, .278 BABIP (Double-A) / 34 G, 114 AB, .219/.359/.395, 25 H, 5 2B, 0 3B, 5 HR, 22 BB, 35 K, 3/5 SB (.263 BABIP)
With his talent undeniable, Clifford and his family made the decision to have him leave Leesville Road High School and enroll him at the Pro5 Baseball Academy, a nearby baseball development program working in conjunction with Crossroads Flex High School to give students an elite, all-inclusive, year-round baseball development program while meeting state academic benchmarks. There, Clifford would be able to get year-round training and exposure in preparation for a professional baseball career. Over the next two years, his profile would rise and his name would commonly be bandied about by scouts and evaluators for his performance at workouts and in exhibition games across the showcase circuit.
Clifford was considered one of the better high school bats in the 2022 draft class, but due to a handful of circumstances, his name fell down most draft boards. A strong commitment to Vanderbilt University scared off most teams, but beyond that, Clifford’s less-impressive-than-expected numbers during his junior and senior seasons prompted many teams to pass on him. The Mets were one such team, high on Clifford and considering drafting him thanks to possessing the 11th and 14th overall selections in the 2022 MLB Draft but ultimately passing after not being able to make the financials work with the rest of the players Tommy Tanous and Mark Tramuta intended on selecting.
After not hearing his name called over the first ten rounds of the draft, Clifford was finally selected in the 11th round by the Houston Astros, the 343rd overall selection made. Astros scouting director Kriss Gross was initially unsure if the team would be able to find the financial flexibility to sign Clifford, but ultimately was able to make it work, buying him out of his commitment to Vanderbilt for a $1,256,530 signing bonus, roughly the equivalent of a second-round pick in the 2022 MLB Draft.
Clifford made his professional debut later that summer with the FCL Astros Orange, the Astros’ Florida Complex League team. Appearing in 13 games, he went 8-36 with 3 doubles, 1 home run, 2 stolen bases, and 12 walks to 16 strikeouts, a .222/.440/.389 batting line. He was promoted to the Single-A Fayette Woodpeckers and finished out the season going 11-41 with them with 2 doubles, 1 home run, and 10 walks to 15 strikeouts, a .268/.412/.390 batting line. All in all, his professional debut went well, as he hit .247/.426/.390 with 5 doubles, 2 home runs, 2 stolen bases, and 22 walks to 31 strikeouts in 25 combined games.
He began the 2023 season with the Woodpeckers and got off to a hot start, hitting .337/.488/.457 in 25 games with 5 doubles, 2 home runs, 3 stolen bases, and 25 walks to 27 strikeouts. He was promoted to the High-A Ashville Tourists in mid-May and was even more impressive there, hitting .271/.356/.547 in 58 games with 11 doubles, 16 home runs, 1 stolen base, and 21 walks to 61 strikeouts.
On August 1st, the Mets traded Justin Verlander to Houston and received Clifford and Drew Gilbert in return. Clifford was assigned to the Brooklyn Cyclones and finished out the rest of the season there, hitting .188/.307/.376 in 32 games with 4 doubles, 6 home runs, 1 stolen base, and 18 walks to 51 strikeouts. All in all, with all three teams, he hit .262/.374/.480 with 20 doubles, 24 home runs, 5 stolen bases in 7 attempts, and 64 walks to 140 strikeouts.
Clifford returned to the Cyclones to start the 2024 season, and while the numbers did not exactly jump off the pages, he was solidly above-average in the 31 games he played there. The 20-year-old hit .216/.412/.304 with 6 doubles and 1 home run, his power numbers suffering but his walk rate benefitting from a weak Brooklyn Cyclones lineup that made it easy to pitch around the young slugger. When he was promoted to the Binghamton Rumble Ponies in mid-May, Clifford began showing off the plus power that makes him so dangerous as a hitter and capable of carrying an entire team for days at a time. Appearing in 98 games, Clifford hit .231/.359/.457 with 21 doubles, 18 home runs, 3 stolen bases, and 63 walks to 117 strikeouts. On the whole, he hit a combined .228/.372/.432 in 129 games on the season with 27 doubles, 19 home runs, 4 stolen bases, and 95 walks to 160 strikeouts. His walk total led the Mets’ minor league system, while his home run and strikeout total both placed him in third.
The Mets had the 21-year-old remain in Binghamton to start the 2025 season, and he ended up playing the majority of the year there, suiting up for 105 games with the Rumble Ponies. Clifford hit .243/.355/.493 with 18 doubles, 1 triple, 24 home runs, 4 stolen bases in 6 attempts, and 63 walks to 113 strikeouts. In mid-August, the team promoted the slugger to Triple-A Syracuse, and he finished the season there, appearing in 34 games and hitting .219/.359/.395 with 5 doubles, 5 home runs, 3 stolen bases in 5 attempts, and 22 walks to 35 strikeouts. Overall, Clifford hit a combined .237/.356/.470 in 2025 with 23 doubles, 1 triple, 29 home runs, 7 stolen bases in 11 attempts, and drew 85 walks to 148 strikeouts. His 29 homers led the Mets minor league system, and his 85 walks led the system for a second-consecutive year.
The 6’3”, 200-pound left-hander stands tall at the plate, standing slightly open and holding his hands high with the bat head angled at 10:00. He swings with a slight kick/toe tap without much of a load or weight transfer. His left-handed stroke is smooth, efficient, and quick, producing light tower power, but it is also long and uppercutty, making him vulnerable to pitches in the upper half of the zone- though he may have made some mechanical adjustments to make himself more effective upstairs, as he hit .241/.477/.586 against pitches up in the zone in his 34 game sample size with Syracuse, where statcast data is publicly available.
Clifford boasts plus-plus raw power and is able to manifest much of that in-game, averaging a 93.6 MPH exit velocity on balls he put in play in Syracuse as per publicly available statcast data, but the swing-and-miss issues will make it difficult to fully tap into that power in-game consistently. Against fastballs, Clifford hit .410/.400/.667 with a 22% whiff rate and an average exit velocity of 96 MPH. Against breaking balls, he hit .231/.222/.577 with a 35.2% whiff rate and an average exit velocity of 90 MPH. Against off-speed pitches, he hit .214/.214/.286 with a 32.6% whiff rate and an average exit velocity of 93.9 MPH.
Clifford has an advanced approach at the plate and makes smart swing decisions, but he sometimes plays himself into poor counts by being too passive at the plate, waiting for pitchers to make mistakes instead of making contact with anything he thinks he can and letting his strength and power take over. Finding himself behind in the count, Clifford’s chase rate is virtually double in such two-strike situations, as opposed to when he is a more favorable counts.
After showing reverse platoon splits and struggling a bit against right-handed pitchers in 2024, hitting .216/.363/.415 against them as compared to the .290/.424/.449 he hit against left-handed pitchers, Clifford’s splits reversed in 2025. He hit an improved .247/.379/.497 against right-handers in 2025 but hit .204/.273/.381 against fellow left-handers.
Not much changed in Clifford’s batted ball profile. He pulled the ball at a 43.9% rate, went back up the middle at a 23.7% rate, and went to the opposite field at a 32.3% rate, all numbers comparable to his 2024 season. Likewise, his 21.3% line drive rate, 38.6% groundball rate, and 40.1% flyball rate were comparable to his 2024 season as well. The one area of noticeable improvement was the damage that was done when he hit the ball in the air. Clifford’s infield flyball rate dropped from 24.0% in 2024 to 19.4% this past season, and his HR/FB ratio increased from 15.7% in 2024 to 21.6% in 2025.
Defensively, Clifford provides little value at any of the positions that he plays. He played first base, left field, and right field in 2025, as well as DH, with the majority of his playing time coming at first base. At first, he is a sub-optimal fielder who will generally make the routine plays but will not do much more than that thanks to a lack of quick-twitch athleticism. In the outfield, he is also a net neutral fielder at best, with his above-average arm an asset, but his lack of athleticism and range a disadvantage. With more time in the outfield, his defense may improve in terms of his read of the ball off the bat, or the routes he takes may become more efficient. But with fringy speed to begin with, losing speed as he ages and matures may counter any experienced-based improvements.
2026 Mets Top 25 Prospect List
9) Will Watson
10) Jack Wenninger
11) Mitch Voit
12) Jonathan Santucci
13) Elian Peña
14) Zach Thornton
15) Nick Morabito
16) R.J. Gordon
17) Chris Suero
18) Dylan Ross
19) Ryan Lambert
20) Antonio Jimenez
21) Edward Lantigua
22) Eli Serrano III
23) Randy Guzman
24) Daiverson Gutierrez
25) Boston Baro
