Three Non-Top 30 Mets Prospects to Monitor in 2026

Recently, we released our list of the top 50 prospects for the Mets here at Metsmerized heading into the 2026 season, and while much of the attention will understandably go towards the front of the list, the back deserves some attention too.

Minor league breakouts happen every year, so here are three players ranked outside the top 30 who have the potential to fly up prospect lists by the end of the season.

Cam Tilly, RHP

The Mets have had a ton of success in recent years drafting former college relief pitchers and turning them into starters. Christian Scott started just five of the 55 games he pitched for the Florida Gators. Nolan McLean started just three of the 39 games he appeared in for Oklahoma State. Will Watson started nine of the 36 games he pitched throughout his college career. Even Brendan Girton is a decent example of this. While he picked up 10 starts in his one and only year at Oklahoma, he was used primarily as a reliever for his first three years at Texas Tech. Even then, he pitched into the fourth inning just four times.

Cam Tilly, the Mets’ seventh-round pick in 2025, has the makings of the next arm to make that transition for the Mets. The righty came in at No. 34 just last month. He’s also already listed as a starting pitcher by the Mets, so we know the transition will at least be attempted.

Tilly spent two seasons at Auburn and started just six of the 33 games he appeared in, all in his second season. The word on Tilly from Baseball America (where he’s ranked No. 28) is that he has a standout splitter that they’ve slapped a 70-grade on, not something that’s done very often. He sits in the low to mid-90s and has topped out at 97, with the potential to develop more velocity. They give the pitch a 50-grade, along with a 60-grade sweeper, 55-grade slider and 40-grade curveball. Pitcher arsenals undergo significant changes while players develop in the minor leagues, so who knows what his pitch mix could look like in even one year from now. However, he’s coming into the organization with a pitch mix more than deep enough to start and two pitches Baseball America has graded as plus offerings, including one (the splitter) they deem to be “a true out pitch.”

Baseball America also compared Tilly to Scott, McLean and others who came to the Mets as relievers and then became starters, which I assure you was discovered after writing the first paragraph of this breakdown. But hey, it’s a pretty clear pattern to see with the Mets. All the ingredients are there for Tilly. Now, he just has to actually do it.

Cleiner Ramirez, OF

The international free agent signing process, at best, can be described as a broken system in desperate need of reform. That’s for many reasons we won’t get into right now, but it’s a mess. When strictly looking at predicting players’ future success, it’s a shot in the dark. The Mets made headlines this offseason by signing former Yankees-linked infielder Wandy Asigen for $3.9 million. What that signing overshadowed was the signing of outfielder Cleiner Ramirez for about $1.37 million, a significant number. Ramirez was MLB Pipeline’s No. 23-ranked international free agent, and he received the 30th-largest signing bonus in his 2026 class.

The 5-foot-9 right-handed hitter came in at No. 43 on MMO’s list. Pipeline has Ramirez with an above-average hit tool and expects him to hit for more power as he gets older and fills out. While he has some infield experience, he’s likely an outfielder. As mentioned, it’s a shot in the dark with IFA prospects, and it can even be hard to evaluate them while playing in the Dominican Summer League as Ramirez will do this season, but the Mets clearly think highly of him. Not only did they give him a handsome signing bonus, but they traded Franklin Gomez, an interesting left-handed prospect, to the Cleveland Guardians for international bonus pool money to have enough for both Asigen and Ramirez.

All eyes will be on Asigen this summer, but don’t forget about Ramirez. There’s breakout potential here.

Yordan Rodriguez, RHP

Jeff McNeil had a great career with the Mets, and it’s one that has a decent chance of landing him in the Mets Hall of Fame one day. With that said, it was time to move on. With one guaranteed year left on his deal (and a club option for 2027), the Mets traded McNeil to the Athletics in December. They retained roughly one-third of the money owed to him in 2026 and received teenage righty Yordan Rodriguez from the A’s. Rodriguez is extremely young — he will be 18 years old for all of 2026.

Last year, as a 17-year-old, Rodriguez pitched well in 15 and 1/3 innings for the A’s DSL affiliate. That doesn’t always mean a ton, but it’s still encouraging to see. Following the trade, JJ Cooper of Baseball America said Rodriguez ranked roughly in the 40-to-45 range of A’s prospects. It’s a flier for the Mets.

“There’s a chance that he could be something,” Cooper said. “And when you’re kind of making almost a little bit of a salary dump kind of move here, that’s probably a better approach if you’re the Mets than it is to pick up a close to the majors guy who’s only going to be an up-and-down guy.”

Now, he’s MMO’s No. 45 Mets prospect. Best-case scenario, Rodriguez is still many, many years away from the majors. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be interesting to see how he looks as a Met for the first time this year. There’s a good chance he repeats the DSL this year, given his age, but with his success there last year, he has a chance to make his stateside debut at some point in 2026.

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