Xzavion Curry didn’t arrive in the Mets organization with much fanfare, and that’s putting it mildly. He signed a minor league deal in early May after spending 2025 bouncing between the Miami Marlins and Colorado Rockies organizations and the Tigres de Quintana Roo of the Mexican League.
The résumé was uneven at every stop: struggles with Miami, struggles with Jacksonville, a decent stretch with Quintana Roo, then more trouble with Colorado’s Triple-A club in Albuquerque. On paper, there wasn’t much reason to expect much.
And then Curry spent 2026 making a mess of those expectations.
The right-hander opened his Mets run in Triple-A Syracuse and, for the first two months, quietly held his own. Used mostly as a starter, he put up a 4.74 ERA over 49.1 innings.
That was enough to get him to the majors in early July, where he turned in four relief outings and allowed just two runs across 6.0 innings. The Mets sent him back down near the end of the month, but that didn’t last long.
Between late July and the end of the season, Curry was optioned and recalled six more times.
By season’s end, the numbers were strange in the best possible way for him. In Syracuse, he was arguably the club’s most effective arm, working mostly as a starter and finishing with a 3.36 ERA in 72.1 innings over 14 starts and two bullpen appearances. He gave up 68 hits, walked 18 and struck out 41.
His big-league line was less polished, but still better than anyone would have guessed when he signed. Curry appeared in 9 games for the Mets, made 1 start and logged a 5.48 ERA in 21.1 innings, with 22 hits allowed, 9 walks and 15 strikeouts.
That ERA looks rough at first glance, but nearly half the runs he surrendered came in one ugly outing against the Baltimore Orioles, when he gave up six runs in 3.0 innings. Take that game out, and he would have posted a 3.44 ERA in 18.1 innings in the majors.
The wild part is that the underlying profile never really suggested this was coming. Curry, by the numbers, isn’t a standout arm, and his stuff doesn’t exactly jump off the page. Even so, he found a way to be effective in Triple-A and serviceable with the Mets, which is not what anyone would have expected when he arrived.
At 28, Curry has likely done enough to earn himself at least another year in affiliated baseball.
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One name that has surfaced is Spencer Torkelson, the Tigers first baseman whose power would fit the lineup but whose defense has raised questions. A deal would likely cost the Mets prospects Ryan Clifford and Will Watson, which underscores how much they may have to give up to patch a spot that has become one of the more complicated on the roster, especially with free-agent alternatives like Ty France and Jake Bauers also in the mix. [Read more 🡒]
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Mets Just Added Another Hitting Voice To A Staff Already Crowded
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It is a crowded setup for a department that already includes two hitting coaches and recently saw Mariano Duncan promoted to the major league staff. For a club trying to get more consistency at the plate, the move suggests the organization wants as many perspectives as possible in the room, even if it leaves open how all those voices will be sorted out once the season gets moving. [Read more 🡒]