Jonathan Santucci Is the Mets’ Next Big Pitching Prospect

For most of this season, most of the attention to Mets pitching prospects has been given to Nolan McLean, Jonah Tong and Brandon Sproat. Now, all three are in the big leagues.

Those are the only three Mets fans should expect to make their MLB debuts this season, but the Mets are rich with minor league pitching depth, and there will be another wave coming in 2026.

The headliner? The 22-year-old lefty, Jonathan Santucci.

A second-round pick in 2024, naming Santucci the headliner of the next wave of Mets pitching prospects isn’t exactly a bold take. However, what he’s done in 2025 has flown under the radar.

When looking deeper into the farm system, players like Jack Wenninger, R.J. Gordon, Brendan Girton and Will Watson are generally more talked about as later draft picks who are performing way above what was expected of them.

Then there’s Santucci. His 3.20 ERA is good, but it’s also higher than all but Gordon, the 13th-round pick, of the four listed above. Santucci, the 46th overall pick, is almost viewed as doing what he’s supposed to be doing.

But make no mistake, when it comes to pure stuff and talent, Santucci is the most exciting non-debuted Mets pitching prospect.

Santucci’s 2025 season—his first time in professional baseball—started off terribly. He gave up seven earned runs in 10 2/3 innings in his first three starts, five earned in 1 1/3 innings in his fourth, and another seven earned in nine innings in his fifth and sixth. Through his first six starts, Santucci had an 8.14 ERA in 21 innings.

Then, things clicked. From his seventh start of the season on, Santucci has been phenominal. In 16 starts, Santucci has thrown 91 2/3 innings with a 2.06 ERA. His first six games, which Santucci has attributed to mechanical issues that have since been rectified, inflate his ERA by over a run.

Remove those six starts, and Santucci jumps from 10th to third in ERA among all Mets minor leaguers with at least 70 innings, trailing just Tong and Zach Thornton. Among all minor leaguers with at least 90 innings, Santucci’s ERA would jump from 83rd to 8th. Of the seven ahead of him, only three have reached at least Double-A, and only one of those three is 22 years old or younger. (Yes, that one is Tong.)

Of course, you can’t just do that. Anyone’s ERA would improve if you remove their worst six starts, but this is just to illustrate how dominant Santucci has been for what is now four months. This is merely looking past a tough first six starts of a player’s professional career—an understandable period for a pitcher to be ironing out some issues—and looking at what he has done for 16 consecutive starts since.

A 3.20 ERA is good, but Santucci has been much better than that for the vast majority of the season.

Santucci has a fastball that he can run up into the upper 90s with elite induced vertical break (recapturing his IVB was one of the issues he fixed early in the season). His slider is his go-to secondary offering, and it’s easily a plus pitch. He’s also developed a new curveball that also looks plus. His changeup is a distant fourth pitch, but it’s in the works.

He’s also incredibly inexperienced. In high school, he was mainly an outfielder. Even when he got to Duke, he still hit a bit early in his career. His full attention hasn’t been on pitching, relatively speaking, until very recently.

And, he’s a lefty. Lefties are always more valuable.

From the beginning of high school to now, Santucci has thrown around 275 total innings. That’s nothing. He’s still learning how to be a pitcher—and he’s already dominating minor league hitting. There is just so much more room to grow for the young southpaw.

This isn’t a comment on the other Mets farmhands mentioned here. The Mets’ system was recently ranked No. 1 in baseball by ESPN, and for good reason. It’s loaded. The Mets have transformed into one of the premier pitching development organizations in baseball, and the glut of pitching prospects from Syracuse to St. Lucie is evidence of that.

Santucci is just the best of the bunch. If he keeps pitching at this level, and especially if he continues to get better, expect him to shoot up prospect lists next season. And, with him already up to Double-A in his first professional season, a 2026 MLB debut is very much on the table.

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