New York Mets 2023 Top 30 Prospect Wraps: Mike Vasil

The New York Mets took Mike Vasil out of Tennessee and he's already knocking the door of a job at Citi Field.

InsideTheMets.com will review each of the New York Mets’ Top 30 prospects, as ranked by MLB.com at the end of the 2023 season.

No. 9: RHP Mike Vasil, Syracuse Mets (Triple-A), Binghamton Rumble Ponies (Double-A)

Statistics for 2023: (26 games, all starts): 5-6, 4.65 ERA, 124 innings, 105 hits, 66 runs (64 earned), 18 home runs allowed, 46 walks, 138 strikeouts, .225 opponent batting average, 1.22 WHIP.

Season Transactions: Started season at Binghamton. Promoted to Syracuse on June 12. Moved to the temporarily inactive list on July 7 so he could play in the MLB Futures Game. Activated on July 16.

Season Summary: An appearance in the MLB Futures Game bodes well for how the season went for Vasil, who was playing just his second full minor league season. He breezed through three affiliates in 2022 and made it all the way to Syracuse in 2023. He set career highs in every category and maintained a solid opponent batting average after two seasons below .200. The home run rate wasn’t high give that he threw more than 2,000 pitches and his 3-ot-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio was impressive.

Journey Through the Organization: The Mets got Vasil in the eighth round in 2021 and he might have gone higher had he not gone to the University of Virginia coming out of high school in 2018. After an impressive short stint in 2021, he worked through forearm tightness and bone spurs in his elbow to play with three different teams in 2022 and had a under-4.00 ERA. With the lost time to injuries, the Mets sent him to the Arizona Fall League, where he pitched well.

What’s next: Now that he’s in Syracuse, he’s tantalizingly close to a call-up to the Mets. What’s standing in his way is refining his pitch mix, with the Mets have put him work getting him to freshen up a curveball and change-up that made progress in 2023. He should get an invite to Major League Spring Training where he can compete for a job in a rotation that needs fresh arms for 2024. If he can’t make the rotation, it’s back to Syracuse, where he’ll be on standby if the Mets need him.

2023 New York Mets Top 30 Prospect Wraps:

No. 30: Kade Morris | No. 29 Coleman Crow | No. 28 Nick Morabito | No. 27 Matt Rudick | No. 26: Joel Diaz | No. 25: Raimon Gomez | No. 24: Diego Mosquera | No. 23: Nolan McLean | No. 22: Jeremiah Jackson | No. 21: Luis R. Rodriguez | No. 20: Ronald Hernandez | No. 19: Calvin Ziegler | No. 18: Jesus Baez | No. 17: Tyler Stuart | No. 16: Dominic Hamel | No. 15: Justin Jarvis | No. 14: Brandon Sproat | No. 13: Jacob Reimer | No. 12: Christian Scott | No. 11: Alex Ramirez | No. 10: Blake Tidwell |