The young starter will probably miss all of 2025 recovering from elbow surgery
The Mets took right-handed pitcher Christian Scott in the fifth round of the 2021 draft out of the University of Florida with likely little anticipation that he would end up in the Major League rotation so soon.
In his first full professional season in 2022, Scott put up numbers that would make a lot of prospect analysts go “yeah that’s fine, I guess.” He kicked off his season with 12 appearances for Low-A Port St. Lucie, and then finished his season posting a 3.80 ERA over five starts in High-A Brooklyn. It was a good showing for an experienced college pitcher, but not exactly a memorable one, as Scott slowly climbed up the organization’s prospect list with few people truly considering him a future star.
And then he kept climbing the ladder in 2023: Six effective starts in Brooklyn, and then another 12 starts in Double-A Binghamton that quickly demonstrated his readiness for the high minors. In fact, out of all Mets minor leaguers with at least 80 innings pitched in 2023, Scott’s 2.57 ERA was the second-lowest. He also allowed an astoundingly low 12 walks in 87 2/3 innings, while racking up more than 11K/9 in his breakout pro season.
Scott started the 2024 season fifth on Amazin’ Avenue’s prospect list and in the rotation for Triple-A Syracuse, where he continued to mow down hitters. He made five starts upstate in April, struck out 36 batters, allowed nine runs, and walked six before the Mets front office called him up to the Majors—not so much because he played into the team’s regular-season plans so quickly, but more because Scott had reached the “he has nothing left to prove in the minors” stage of his career.
And that’s when Scott’s performance regressed back to the “yeah that’s fine, I guess” portion of his career. After pitching at least six innings in his first two Major League starts against the Tampa Bay Rays and Atlanta Braves, the rest of Scott’s rookie season can be charitably described as promising: A 4.56 ERA over 47 1/3 innings, with his strikeout rate sinking and his walk rate rising (but still good) over his much more effective minor league performance. He pitched well back in Triple-A in June, and then not so well back in the Majors in July before being shut down for the season with a UCL strain.
As far as rookie seasons for a previously underhyped prospect go, Scott’s was pretty good. He showed the type of stuff that might play well as a back-of-the-rotation starter somewhere down the line, which is already a big win for an organization that for a recent stretch had struggled to develop its own pitching. It’s reasonable to expect Scott to play in the rotation at least as a spot starter once he returns from injury, and perhaps even take a greater load depending on how experiments with Clay Holmes and Frankie Montas go for the Mets in 2025.
As for this year, we don’t need to do much prognosticating, because Scott will likely spend the entire season recovering from a combined Tommy John + internal brace procedure on his right elbow. If Scott pitches at all in 2025, it’ll be because both of these things happened:
- He recovers much more quickly than expected and shows, once again, that he has nothing left to prove after successful Minor League rehab starts.
- The Mets are out of contention by September and don’t have anything to lose by giving Scott a Major League start.
Both of those seem pretty unlikely, so instead of laying out what Scott can bring to the Mets in 2025, we’ll instead leave you with this fun fact: According to Stathead, Christian Scott is the first Mets player ever to go by the name Christian.
A pretty solid name, in my opinion.