The Mets’ farm system doesn’t look the way it did a year ago. With Carson Benge and Nolan McLean moving on to prospect status, plus A.J.
Ewing, the system has thinned out fast, and the results on the field have followed. Binghamton and Brooklyn both won league titles last season; this year, they’ve been among the worst teams in their leagues.
Even Jonah Tong, who might be the Mets’ No. 1 overall prospect, has been sitting on an ERA north of 5.50 deep into the Triple-A season.
That doesn’t mean the cupboard is empty. The Mets still have some interesting names tucked away in the lower levels, and with the trade deadline expected to bring more talent into the system, a few lesser-known prospects could get pushed even further out of the spotlight. Before that happens, three players deserve a closer look.
Daviel Hurtado has turned himself into a name worth tracking. The 21-year-old left-hander, signed in the Mets’ 2023 international class, had a rough first pro season in 2024 with a 6.32 ERA in eight Florida Complex League starts. He bounced back sharply in 2025, putting up a 2.06 ERA in 18 appearances across rookie ball and Low-A, and he’s kept rolling this year.
Through 14 appearances between Low-A and High-A, Hurtado owns a 2.33 ERA. In his time with High-A Brooklyn, that number drops to 1.80 over 10 outings.
The real calling card is his command. He has a 0.833 WHIP on the season and a 0.756 WHIP with Brooklyn, and he attacks hitters with a mid-90s fastball, plus an above-average slider and curveball that help him miss bats and limit hard contact.
In June, he posted a 27.4% strikeout rate against a 4.2% walk rate, which only adds to the buzz.
At catcher, Chris Suero has quietly outperformed expectations. While Kevin Parada remains the name most Mets fans know, Suero has taken a different path after signing for just $10,000 in 2022.
He also spends time at first base and in left field, but his speed stands out for a player who works around the more stationary spots on the field. He stole 20 bases in 2024, then 35 last year, and he’s already up to 24 steals this season in Double-A.
The bat is the question. Suero is hitting under the Mendoza Line in 2026, and his career average sits in the .220s.
Still, he brings enough on-base ability and pop to stay relevant, with an on-base percentage around .350 and a slugging percentage just under .400 this season, both close to his career marks. He’s also relatively new behind the plate, but he has a strong arm and decent pop times.
If the defense comes along, that will shape where his ceiling ends up.
Ryan Lambert is the wild card of the group. The right-hander made noise in 2025 with a 1.62 ERA in 46 games between High-A and Double-A, and his fastball can reach 100 mph. That performance had him pegged as a possible bullpen surprise in spring training, but 2026 has gone sideways at Triple-A, where he has a 6.35 ERA.
The numbers have taken a hit, but the story is more complicated than the ERA alone. Before landing on the injured list on July 11, Lambert had issued 23 walks in just 22 2/3 innings, a number that was never going to hold up.
He’s also been on the injured list multiple times, which helps explain some of the erratic command. Even so, he’s still missing bats, striking out 11.9 per nine innings this season, a rate that actually trails his career average.
If Lambert gets healthy and reins in the walks, the stuff is still loud enough to put him back on a sub-2.00 ERA track. He’s the kind of reliever hitters hate seeing come out of the bullpen, and while his road to the majors may not be as blocked as it looks, his health is the key piece.
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For the Mets, the comparison is hard to ignore because the names ahead of Okamoto on their wish list have not delivered the way anyone expected. Kyle Tucker and Bo Bichette were the big swings, the kind of targets that can shape an entire winter, but both have underwhelmed relative to their reputations and price tags, leaving another rival success story to sharpen the sense that the safer, less glamorous path might have been the better one. [Read more 🡒]