Christian Scott is Wild Card for Mets Heading Into Spring Training

With Freddy Peralta now in the mix following a trade over from the Milwaukee Brewers, the New York Mets’ starting rotation is all but set heading into the 2026 season.

Nolan McLean, Clay Holmes, David Peterson, Kodai Senga and Sean Manaea make up the core members of the group outside of Peralta, but it’s unclear if the club will go with a six-man rotation, while top prospect Jonah Tong is likely to open the year with Triple-A Syracuse after making five starts at the end of last season.

One starter who has constantly gone overlooked within that equation, though, is Christian Scott. A fifth-round pick out of the University of Florida in the 2021 MLB Draft, Scott established himself as the Mets’ top pitching prospect before making his big-league debut against the Tampa Bay Rays on May 4, 2024.

Throwing 47 1/3 innings across nine outings to a 4.56 ERA, 4.60 FIP and 1.204 WHIP with 39 strikeouts as a rookie, Scott flashed his upside despite the results not always being immaculate. Perhaps the most impressive takeaway from the right-hander’s first taste of major league action was his ability to pitch with pinpoint command, posting a 6.1 percent walk rate while also limiting opposing batters to a hard-hit rate of 35.7 percent.

Just ahead of the trade deadline in July 2024, though, Scott was placed on the 15-day injured list with a UCL sprain. The initial hope was that he’d be able to go through a throwing program and return towards the end of the season as the Mets made their playoff push, but he instead underwent a combined Tommy John surgery and internal brace procedure that would wipe out his entire 2025 campaign.

Scott was able to complete a series of live batting practice sessions by the time October rolled out, per The Athletic’s Will Sammon, and he reported at the time that the 26-year-old hoped to be a full participant in spring training.

With pitchers and catchers set to report to Port St. Lucie by February 11, the date of their first workout, Scott will be back in action alongside his teammates in the immediate future. Though the Mets’ rotation is quite crowded, president of baseball operations David Stearns did make it a point during a press conference earlier this month to mention that he expects Scott to play a “meaningful role” for the team this upcoming season.

“It’s tough to remember that a year and a half ago, this guy was one of the best young pitching prospects and young Major League starters in baseball and then he got hurt,” Stearns said, per NJ.com’s Max Goodman. “We would expect Christian to be able to play a meaningful role on our team this year.”

It’s always tough to project just how effective pitchers will be in their first year back from Tommy John surgery. Former Mets ace Jacob deGrom is one of the bigger success stories in that regard, as he underwent it in June 2023 and made three starts with a 1.69 ERA in his return to the Texas Rangers in September 2024. This past year, he posted a 2.97 ERA with 185 strikeouts over 30 outings and 172 2/3 frames.

Miami Marlins starter and 2022 NL Cy Young Award winner Sandy Alcantara is on the other side of the fence, as he underwent Tommy John surgery in October 2023 and missed the entire 2024 campaign before logging a 5.36 ERA across 31 starts and 174 2/3 starts in 2025.

Scott doesn’t have a similar track record to either deGrom or Alcantara, but it paints a picture of the varying results for pitchers coming off Tommy John. The former Top 100 prospect does seem to be healthy at this point, which is a promising sign for the Mets, and it’ll be interesting to see how he’s used throughout Grapefruit League play in spring training.

It’s unlikely that Scott will break camp as a member of the club’s rotation barring any injuries, though the Mets will likely want to keep him stretched out, meaning he may not be an option out of the big-league bullpen to start the year.

It would make sense to ease Scott back into game action and have him get some innings in with Syracuse before potentially becoming a major league option as the season goes along. It does feel as though he’s going overlooked, however, and he is a major wild card for the Mets as they look to get back into the playoffs.

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