Last Updated on August 15, 2025 10:56 am by Paul Williamson | Published: August 15, 2025

As the fantasy baseball season progresses, the value of minor league call ups available on the waiver wire goes down precipitously, especially beyond the August 16th date to preserve rookie eligibility. While this deadline doesn’t have any service time implications, preserving a player’s rookie eligibility can land an extra first round draft pick for that player’s team if he is to win the rookie of the year award in 2026-obviously necessitating rookie status. Thus, any prospect who’s been withheld in the minors until this point for this purpose is a.) on at least two of the big three (MLB Pipeline, ESPN and Baseball America) top 100 prospects lists, and b.) have at least a remote chance of winning rookie of the year next season.

The Mets have endured an incredible stretch of dismal starting pitching, particularly with regards to the lack of length in their starts, through a combination of building up injured pitchers and under performance. Sean Manaea and Kodai Senga have only been without pitch restrictions for a couple of starts, Clay Holmes has been extremely inefficient and Frankie Montes was flat out terrible before his move to the bullpen. His replacement in the rotation will be consensus top 100 prospect Nolan McLean, who becomes the first of a batch of three high upside starters in the Mets upper levels of the minors. He’ll make his MLB debut on Saturday at home against the red hot Seattle Mariners, with all the added pressure of pitching for a spiraling team in New York, so what is fair to expect from McLean?

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Nathan Baker

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