MLB Pipeline’s latest Mets prospect update didn’t do much to shake up the top of the list, but it did shine a brighter light on one arm that’s been building momentum in the background: 21-year-old left-hander Daviel Hurtado.
The new rankings were released without recently signed draft picks, and they also don’t account for the wave of changes expected by the end of the day on August 3rd. The Mets are still expected to keep adding youth to the system, which means the picture should look different soon enough.
For now, though, the list is mostly familiar. Jonah Tong stays in the No. 1 spot despite a season that hasn’t really backed it up, Elian Pena has moved up, and the struggling pair of Dylan Ross and Ryan Lambert barely made the top 30.
Hurtado sits much lower at No. 18, but that number feels more like a placeholder than a real evaluation.
Signed out of Cuba in the pre-David Stearns era, Hurtado has spent most of his third pro season in High-A Brooklyn and has quietly put together one of the better pitching lines in the system. In 45 innings there, mostly as a starter, he’s 4-1 with a 1.80 ERA. The strike-throwing has been solid too, with a 2.2 BB/9 and 8.6 K/9.
The scouting report from MLB Pipeline points to one clear strength: getting hitters to put the ball on the ground. And when Hurtado is right, that trait shows up fast.
In mid-June, he threw 5 shutout innings, allowed just 1 hit, and piled up 11 ground balls. The next outing told the other side of the story - 10 fly balls and 4 earned runs in 4.1 innings.
That kind of swing isn’t new. Hurtado was already trending up last season, when he posted a 2.06 ERA over 65.2 innings.
He struck out more batters then, too, with a 10.3 K/9 rate, but this year looks like a tradeoff: a little less swing-and-miss, a little more control. His walk rate in 2025 sits at 3.3 BB/9, and he’s limiting damage on contact as well, allowing only 5.5 hits per nine innings.
In a farm system that has seen its stock dip because of graduations and underperformance, Hurtado is the kind of lower-level pitcher who can start changing the conversation. MLB Pipeline lists his major league ETA as 2028, but he may be closer to the radar than that ranking suggests.
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