First Half Record: 31-43 (7/10, International League East Division)
Second Half Record: 46-29 (2/10, International League East Division)
When the Syracuse Mets’ Opening Day roster was announced, it included
Brandon Sproat, Amazin’ Avenue’s top prospect for the 2025 season, Drew Gilbert (6), Blade Tidwell (16), and Dom Hamel (20). Additionally, the team would be starting the year with nineteen players with major league experience. Syracuse had ended the second half of the 2024 season as one of the worst in the International League, but with so much talent on board, expectations were that the team would turn things around.
All in all, the team got off to a sluggish start and struggled to really build momentum, with the “bullpen churn” and the promotion-and-demotion of players possibly having contributed to some losses. They ended the first half with a 31-43 record, 7th in the International League East Division, 16.0 games behind the first place Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp, and were one of the bottom teams in all of Triple-A baseball.
The second half of the Triple-A season began on June 24, and thanks to promotions from Double-A Binghamton, Syracuse was a much better team the rest of the way, as their record reflected. Additionally, a handful of players who had been struggling or otherwise under-performing began righting the ship, most notably Sproat, who posted a very poor 5.95 ERA in the first half and nearly cut that by two-thirds in the second half.
Coming into the last week of the season, Syracuse’s playoff window was still open, but only slightly. Trailing the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders by three games, they needed to overtake the Yankees’ affiliate to end the second half with the best record in the International League second half. Syracuse did their best, going 4-2 against the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, but the RailRiders also went 4-2 against the Buffalo Bisons, ending Syracuse’s potential playoff aspirations midway through the week.
TEAM MVP
Jared Young: 75 G, 273 AB, .300/.396/.560, 82 H, 14 2B, 3 3B, 17 HR, 41 BB, 57 K, 8/10 SB, .322 BABIP
(Runner Up: Yonny Hernandez)
One of two Syracuse hitters to appear in at least 50 games for the team and bat .300 or better, Jared Young also led the team in home runs, OPS, and was in the upper echelon in virtually every other offensive category. While the Canadian outfielder wasn’t particularly effective in any of his three call-ups, he was arguably the best player on the Syracuse Mets.
Signed as a minor league free agent after spending the prior few seasons with the Cubs and the Cardinals, the 30-year-old is seemingly a true Quad-A player. In over 300 games played at the Triple-A level, in the Pacific Coast League and International League, he has a cumulative .275/.373/.500 batting line; more specifically, in the last three years, he is a .298/.408/.548 hitter in 240 games. At the major league level, for his career, he is a .202/.270/.462 hitter.
TEAM CY YOUNG
Nolan McLean: 16 G (13 GS), 87.1 IP, 58 H, 31 R, 27 ER (2.78 ERA), 38 BB, 97 K, .239 BABIP
(Runner Up: Brandon Sproat)
Drafted as a two-way player, the Mets quickly put the kibosh on that after early returns on the hitting side of things were less-than-impressive and it’s a good thing that they did. There’s an alternative future out there somewhere where the Mets had McLean continue hitting and he progressed marginally at the plate and on the mound, ultimately into a Micah Owings-esque player (of course, there is an alternative future that is just as likely where he developed into a Shohei Ohtani-eqsue pitcher, but that doesn’t help my narrative here). Focusing completely on pitching, the right-hander has really blossomed into something special.
Last season, the International League had an average ERA of 4.67, and the Syracuse Mets specifically had an average ERA of 4.64. McLean’s 2.78 ERA was almost a full two runs lower, along with better H/9, BB/9 and K/9 rate stats. Normally, players don’t get better upon being promoted to face tougher competition, but the right-hander pulled a deGrom, posting a 2.06 ERA in 48.0 major league innings. Tallied up, McLean was worth 1.8 rWAR/1.2 fWAR, making him the Mets’ fourth/sixth most valuable pitcher, according to those respective metrics.
