Three Mets Named In Baseball America’s Top 10 East League Prospects

Ronny Mauricio, Photo by Dan Fritz

Francisco Álvarez, Ronny Mauricio and Brett Baty–the Mets’ top three prospects–were named to Baseball America‘s top 10 list of the best prospects in the High-A East League.

They were all named for their contributions when playing for the Brooklyn Cyclones, though Mauricio and Baty both ended the year in Double-A. Álvarez was ranked No. 3, Mauricio No. 5 and Baty No. 7.

Starting with Álvarez, the Mets’ top prospect played 84 games in the East League. He had an .889 OPS and 22 home runs to go along with a 12 percent walk rate and 24.6 percent strikeout rate across 333 plate appearances with Brooklyn.

Álvarez, at just 19 years old, has consistently appeared near or in the top 10 of multiple league-wide top prospects lists by the end of the 2021 minor-league season.

Mauricio, on the other hand, was voted by East League managers as the league’s “most exciting player, as well as the best defensive shortstop and the infielder with the best arm.” The 20-year-old also saw a power boom while playing in the East League. After hitting seven home runs over his first two professional seasons, Mauricio mashed 19 homers for Brooklyn in 100 games.

Brooklyn manager Ed Blankmeyer said Mauricio’s maturity stood out to him, noting the “ups and downs” of his offensive season didn’t affect how he performed on defense. Sounds a bit like who the Mets have at short at the major-league level.

The Mets promoted Mauricio to Double-A for the last week-and-a-half of the minor-league season to join his former Brooklyn teammate Brett Baty, who Baseball America ranked seventh for his time in the East League this season.

Brett Baty (Left) and Ronny Mauricio (right), Photo by Joseph Langan of MMO

Baty slashed .247/.351/.538/.911 over 209 plate appearances in High-A before getting the call up to Binghamton, where the 21-year-old (a couple years younger than Double-A league average) then had an OPS of .787 over 40 games.

“No player received as much praise from league managers for the way he carried himself on the field as Baty,” BA said. Baty made strides on defense at third base, the article said, on top of displaying his offensive skills the Mets knew he had when he was drafted.

Baseball America is rolling out their top 10 prospects list for each league in the minors. On Thursday, Mets prospect Alex Ramirez was named to BA’s list of the top prospects from the Low-A East league.

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