2025 NRI Preview: Yacksel Ríos

The New York Mets in the president of baseball operations, David Stearns, era love loading up on hard-throwing pitchers on minor league deals, and that’s why the Mets brought in Yacksel Ríos in January 2024. Ríos, who leans on his mid-to-upper 90 mph fastball, fits that bill perfectly.

Ríos was drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies in 2011 out of high school. He made his major league debut in 2017 at 24-years old. After a few years with the Phillies he was placed on waivers in August 2019. He then bounced around with the Pirates, Rays, Mariners, Red Sox, White Sox, Braves, and, most recently, the Athletics.

Over six years in the majors, Ríos has a 6.32 ERA, 5.61 FIP, 1.566 WHIP, and a 70 ERA+ over 98 1/3 innings. The last time he saw considerable time in the majors was 2021 where he had a 4.28 ERA and 110 ERA+ over 27 1/3 innings spread over 23 games. Ríos fared mostly well in Syracuse last season with a 3.90 ERA over 27 games (30 innings) to go with a 1.567 WHIP.

Let’s go back to that 2021 year for a moment. That season he tossed his sinker about a third of the time, averaging 97.3 mph. He then mixed in his four-seam fastball 29.6% of the time, which averaged 96.9 mph. He used his mid-80 mph slider 86.5% of the time and mixed in his mid-80 mph splitter to round out his arsenal.

The Mets needed a lot of bullpen help in 2024 and didn’t call on Ríos. In order to move up the depth chart he’s going to need to have an impressive spring and strong start to the season in Syracuse (Triple-A). He got off well enough so far in spring, with 2/3 scoreless innings while throwing extremely hard.

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