The Mets’ minor league weekly honors landed in a narrow pool this time, with the Single-A calendar already finished and only Binghamton and Syracuse left to supply candidates. That left Jonathan Santucci as the week’s pitching choice, while Vidal Brujan got the nod on offense after the McNeil Rule shut out a hotter bat.
Brujan’s week may have been enough to earn the recognition, but the larger story is still the odd path that brought him to the Mets in the first place. New York acquired the veteran in January, sending cash to the Minnesota Twins.
He never really got traction in camp, and once he was assigned to Triple-A Syracuse, the big league path only got shorter. He was up in Queens for a bit after Ronny Mauricio went on the injured list with a broken thumb at the beginning of May, joining Francisco Lindor.
At the major league level, the production never showed up. Brujan appeared in 9 games and went 1-for-11 with a .091/.167/.091 line, one walk, one strikeout, and a .100 BABIP. In Syracuse, though, he’s been much more useful, putting together a 2026 line of 60 games, 198 at-bats, and .268/.381/.399 with 53 hits, 10 doubles, 2 triples, 4 home runs, 33 walks, 39 strikeouts, and 15 steals in 20 tries.
That’s enough to make him a serviceable Triple-A piece, even if the ceiling is limited. He was once a top prospect in the Rays’ system, but Tampa Bay eventually moved on, and the rest of his career has been a carousel: traded to the Miami Marlins in November 2023, then to the Chicago Cubs for cash almost a year later, then claimed by the Braves on waivers that August, designated for assignment by Atlanta in January, claimed by the Twins, designated again a week later, and finally traded to the Mets for cash. The piece here is simple: he’s a light-hitting utility infielder, and there’s not much reason to picture him as a 2027 major league answer for New York.
Santucci’s case was different. His week was enough to win Pitcher of the Week, and it also pushed him into rare territory under the McNeil Rule.
He is now the second player - and first pitcher - to have the McNeil Rule activated this season. The last pitcher to be McNeil’ed before him was Jonah Tong in Week Eleven of the 2025 season, and the last left-hander was Zach Thornton in Week Nine.
On the mound this week, Santucci made one Triple-A start and went 5.0 innings, allowing 1 hit, 1 run, 1 earned run, no walks, and striking out 6. For the season, he has split his work between Double-A and Triple-A.
In Double-A, he made 19 starts, logged 68 hits, 42 runs, 36 earned runs, a 3.57 ERA, 45 walks, and 120 strikeouts with a .314 BABIP. In Triple-A, he has made 7 starts and thrown 29.0 innings, giving up 31 hits, 19 runs, 17 earned runs, posting a 5.28 ERA, walking 18, and striking out 37 with a .351 BABIP.
His move up to Syracuse at the beginning of August started rough. In his first four starts there, he had a 7.71 ERA over 14.0 innings, with 16 hits allowed, 16 walks, and 18 strikeouts.
Over his next three outings, though, he settled in: a 3.00 ERA across 15.0 innings, with 15 hits, only 2 walks, and 19 strikeouts. The biggest shift was obvious - the free passes dropped fast - even if the tradeoff was more home run damage, with 4 homers allowed during the better stretch after just 1 in the rough one.
The Mets’ season-by-season list of weekly honorees keeps rolling on from there, with names like Hayden Senger, Cam Tilly, A.J. Ewing, Christian Scott, Randy Guzman, Jose Chirinos, Ryan Clifford, Channing Austin, Vincent Perozo, Frank Camarillo, Nick Morabito, MJ Melendez, Noah Hall, Mitch Voit, and Elian Peña all showing up along the way.
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