WASHINGTON — Ask a New York Mets pitching coach about Nolan McLean, and eyes get wide.
The 24-year-old has made just one MLB start, an eight-strikeout gem against the Seattle Mariners last weekend. McLean’s debut was a tantalizing glimpse into the impact pitcher he might soon become. Against Seattle, the broad-shouldered righty showcased his world-class ability to spin the ball. His curveball averaged 3,279 rotations per minute — immediately the single highest-spinning pitch in the bigs.
That particular skill won’t instantly turn McLean into an MVP candidate, but it does make him one of the more fascinating young starters in all of baseball. And for the Mets, McLean’s journey from a talented but raw two-way college player to a big-league impact arm is proof of concept, an exciting blueprint for successful pitching development.
As an organization with a long history of exciting young hurlers, the Mets are actually emerging from a dry spell. They have not had a pitcher under 30 receive a Cy Young vote since Noah Syndergaard in 2016. Jacob deGrom, owner of the lowest ERA in franchise history, was drafted way back in 2010. David Peterson has grown into a steady rotation piece but isn’t an ace.
And so, McLean represents something important for the Mets: the first impact starter drafted and developed under the current regime.
“Who he was in Low-A is wildly different than he is now,” Mets director of pitching development Eric Jagers, who was hired in January 2023, opined. “His eyes have been opened to the art of pitching.”
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At Oklahoma State, McLean was predominantly a hitter, tallying 616 plate appearances across his college career, compared to just 57 1/3 innings on the mound. In Stillwater, he would often move from third base or the outfield to the mound to close out games. (He was selected by the Orioles as a sophomore in 2022, but disagreements over his medical scuttled a deal, and he went back to Oklahoma State for his junior season.)
The Mets’ scouting and development groups soon identified McLean as an overlooked talent, a supremely athletic mover who was only scratching the surface as a pitcher. They also knew, via pitch data, that McLean’s “spin capacity” was elite. Jagers remembers the team’s manager of analytics, Jack Bredeson, sending him video of the sturdy righty during his time at OSU. National crosschecker scout Chris Hervey was also a strong advocate of McLean’s.
When the Mets selected McLean in the third round of the 2023 draft, the club announced him as a two-way player. But while the team enabled him to chase his two-way dream, the organization believed the third-round pick’s future was on the mound. And that reality set in last summer, once McLean reached Double-A and it became clear that his arm was far outpacing his bat. He gave up hitting soon thereafter — but not before going yard in his final professional plate appearance.
Focusing entirely on pitching, for the first time in his playing career, turned out to be a game-changer for McLean. He established a routine. He had more energy, more life on his fastball, more time to spend actualizing his immense talent.
“When I was going out there for the first [inning], I felt I didn’t have my legs underneath me,” McLean told Yahoo Sports of the two-way grind. “It felt like the fifth and sixth inning are supposed to feel. So once I set the bat down, I really dived into just trying to become a better pitcher. Always knew my stuff was good. It was just a matter of execution.”
“He was a cage rat, hell-bent on becoming a better hitter,” Jagers said of McLean as a two-way player. “He was just spending so much of his training economy on that.”
With his full attention on pitching, McLean’s unique ability to spin the ball opened the door to new pitch shapes and deepened his arsenal. And now, he figures to play a crucial role down the stretch for a Mets team in need of a starting pitching boost.
“I like his personality,” Mets pitching coach Jeremy Heffer told Yahoo Sports. “Like, I think he fits really well with our group. And he can really do some cool things with the ball. From a pitching perspective, that’s exciting.”
Rewind to the beginning of this MLB season, and the Mets’ starting rotation was easily one of the sport’s biggest stories. It appeared that president of baseball operations David Stearns, Heffner, Jagers and the entire pitching development team were working wonders once again after rejuvenating Sean Manaea, Luis Severino and José Quintana had propelled the club’s unforgettable run last October.
The Mets tried a similar tactic heading into 2025, re-signing Manaea and adding a trio of mid-tier free-agent arms in Clay Holmes, Frankie Montas and Griffin Canning. Entering spring training, prognosticators were skeptical about whether the Mets had done enough to solidify the rotation. Those doubts intensified when both Manaea and Frankie hit the shelf in camp due to significant injuries.
And then, to nearly everyone’s surprise, the Mets’ rotation dominated. Through the first two months of the season, New York’s pitching staff had a 2.84 ERA, far and away the best in baseball. Praises were sung. Articles were written. Nobody could believe the Mets were doing it again.
But the good times didn’t last forever. Injuries and regression struck. Across June and July, the team’s ERA ballooned to 4.24, seventh-worst in the league. Montas, upon his return, struggled mightily and has since been moved to the bullpen. Canning, who was pitching brilliantly, ruptured his Achilles tendon on a defensive play. Starters struggled to get through five innings, putting more stress on a suddenly undermanned bullpen.
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Yet at the trade deadline, the Mets opted not to add a starter. That decision, in part, was motivated by the team’s faith in its own processes, its belief that Heffner and Co. could get the struggling arms back on track. It was also motivated by the emergence of McLean and a pair of other highly touted pitching prospects in the upper minors, Brandon Sproat and Jonah Tong.
McLean will make his second big-league start on Friday in Atlanta. Whether he’ll figure into a Mets playoff rotation remains to be seen. But his trajectory is already an invigorating success story for the entire organization.
“McLean is A+. Really fulfilling for our group,” Jagers said. “That 2023 draft was the first group that we were able to see full life cycle — [identify], develop, deliver. Awesome one for scouting and [player development].”
