{"id":80232,"date":"2025-08-13T18:17:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T18:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/80232\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T18:17:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T18:17:07","slug":"mets-to-promote-nolan-mclean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/80232\/","title":{"rendered":"Mets To Promote Nolan McLean"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Mets will call up top pitching prospect Nolan McLean<\/a> to make his MLB debut this Saturday, reports SNY\u2019s Andy Martino<\/a>. He\u2019ll step into the rotation spot vacated by Frankie Montas<\/a>\u2019 move to the bullpen<\/a>. Jon Heyman of the New York Post reported earlier this morning<\/a> that righty Paul Blackburn<\/a> was also headed to the bullpen when he\u2019s ready to be reinstated from the injured list, setting the stage for either McLean or fellow prospect Brandon Sproat<\/a> to make his debut.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

As we noted yesterday when the Mets moved Montas to the \u2019pen, the Saturday start aligns far better with McLean\u2019s turn in the Triple-A rotation than with that of Sproat. McLean has also simply outpitched Sproat this season, though both well-regarded prospects have excelled recently.<\/p>\n

The timing of the move likely isn\u2019t a coincidence. Saturday marks the first day on the calendar where there\u2019s not enough time remaining for players to accrue enough service to exhaust their rookie eligibility. By waiting until Saturday to promote McLean, the Mets have ensured that he\u2019ll still qualify as a rookie next season and therefore still be able to earn the Mets potential future draft picks via the league\u2019s Prospect Promotion Incentive (PPI) program. In all likelihood, McLean is just one of several top prospects around the league who\u2019ll be promoted after Aug. 15.<\/p>\n

McLean, 24, was the Mets\u2019 third-round pick in 2023. He\u2019s rated as one of the system\u2019s more promising young arms since that selection, but his stock has exploded in 2025 as he\u2019s ripped through Double-A and Triple-A lineups. McLean has pitched a combined 113 2\/3 innings between those two levels and compiled a tidy 2.45 ERA while punching out 27.2% of his opponents. His 10.7% walk rate is still too high, but his huge 54.7% ground-ball rate can help to erase a few of those free passes by way of the double-play ball.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s terrific run has not only vaulted McLean toward the top of the Mets\u2019 in-house prospect lists \u2014 it\u2019s made him a consensus top-100 prospect in the sport. He sits 37th among all big league prospects at MLB.com<\/a>, 40th at Baseball America<\/a> and 53rd at FanGraphs<\/a> on each outlet\u2019s post-deadline reranking of the sport\u2019s top young talents.<\/p>\n

The 6\u20192\u2033, 215-pound McLean is an Oklahoma State product whose athleticism draws plenty of praise. He was a two-sport star in high school, playing both baseball and football, and he was a two-way player at OSU, where he was a third baseman and outfielder in addition to his work on the mound. He\u2019s since dialed in only on pitching and experienced an uptick in velocity, now sitting 95 mph with a four-seamer that can climb to 98 mph when he needs to reach back for a bit extra. MLB.com\u2019s report on McLean calls his sweeper a \u201cmonster\u201d of a pitch with \u201celite\u201d spin rate. He\u2019s sitting 85.5 mph with that pitch and also mixing in a sinker, cutter and seldom-used changeup.<\/p>\n

Because McLean will retain rookie eligibility going into next year, he could earn the Mets a draft pick down the line. If McLean were to win National League Rookie of the Year or finish top-three in NL MVP voting next season, the Mets would gain that pick. Even if McLean doesn\u2019t hit either of those goals, the fact that he\u2019ll be a top-100 prospect who accrued a full year of service as a rookie opens a three-year window for him to net the Mets a compensatory pick based on award voting. If McLean were to land any top-three finish in Cy Young or MVP voting before reaching arbitration, the Mets would still gain a pick. Players can only net their team one pick under the league\u2019s PPI program, but the timing of his promotion means McLean could do so at any point from 2026-28.<\/p>\n

Setting aside the PPI aspect of the promotion, McLean\u2019s promotion comes at a time when he cannot accrue a year of service this season. He\u2019ll be controllable for at least six full years beyond the current campaign \u2014 potentially more than that, depending on whether he\u2019s optioned at any point in the future. The earliest he could become a free agent would be after the 2031 season, and the earliest McLean could qualify for arbitration would be following the 2028 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mets will call up top pitching prospect Nolan McLean to make his MLB debut this Saturday, reports…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[56393,43045,56394,56395,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-80232","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-brandon-sproat","9":"tag-frankie-montas","10":"tag-nolan-mclean","11":"tag-paul-blackburn","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}