Next up on our list is a right-handed pitcher.
Name: Blade Tidwell
Position: RHP
Born: 6/08/2001
Height: 6’4”
Weight: 205 lbs.
Bats/Throws: R/R
Acquired: 2022 MLB Draft, 2nd Round (University of Tennessee)
2024 Stats: 7 G (5 GS), 37.1 IP, 29 H, 13 R, 10 ER (2.41 ERA), 11 BB, 44 K, .308 BABIP (Double-A) / 19 G (17 GS), 85.0 IP, 80 H, 65 R, 56 ER (5.93 ERA), 53 BB, 77 K, .268 BABIP (Triple-A)
Tennessee native Janzen Blade Tidwell helped lead Loretto High School to three straight state tournament appearances, including a TSSAA Class A State Title in 2017 when he was a freshman. A two-way player, he hit .557 with 6 home runs and 15 steals in his junior season in 2019 while going a perfect 8-0 in 53.0 innings pitched, striking out 107. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he was not able to play much organized baseball in 2020, his senior year, but it really didn’t matter much, as already had an incredibly array of baseball tools and was considered a high priority follow by scouts and evaluators. He had many suitors, but none were able to meet his pre-draft bonus demands, so he honored his commitment to the University of Tennessee.
The Vols’ Sunday starter, Tidwell led all Tennessee pitchers with 18 starts in 2021, his freshman season. He posted a 3.74 ERA in 98.2 innings, allowing 84 hits, 30 walks, and 90 strikeouts. His ten wins were second in program history for a freshman, behind only R.A. Dickey. Along with current teammate Drew Gilbert, he was invited to play with the USA Baseball National Collegiate Team that summer.
A draft-eligible sophomore, Tidwell came into the 2022 season one of the top college pitching prospects in the class, but unfortunately for him, just prior to the start of the season, it was announced that he would miss the start of the season due to a shoulder injury. According to Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello, the right-hander was experiencing soreness in his shoulder stemming from stiffness in the area. It was an ongoing issue that Vols trainers and doctors were aware of and tracking but was healing slowly. It was not severe enough to necessitate surgery to fix but would take time to resolve itself on its own. After missing roughly two months, he returned to the mound in late March and was handled with a light touch, limited to one-inning stints early on before being allowed to throw multiple innings. All in all, he pitched a total of 39.0 innings over 13 appearances and posted a 3.00 ERA with 31 hits allowed, 11 walks, and 51 strikeouts.
He was still available when the Mets made their second-round selection in the 2022 MLB Draft and the team picked Tidwell with the 52nd overall pick. Roughly two weeks later, he signed for $1,850,000, a few hundred thousand dollars over the MLB-assigned slot value of $1,474,400. He was assigned to the FCL Mets to begin his professional career in mid-August and was then promoted to the St. Lucie Mets after a single appearance. There, he made four regular season starts and posted a 2.16 ERA in 8.1 innings with 4 hits allowed, 6 walks, and 9 strikeouts. In the postseason, he started game one of the Florida State League Division Series and game two of the Florida State League Championship Series, throwing 9.2 scoreless innings with 5 hits allowed, 2 walks, and 13 strikeouts.
Considered the Mets’ 6th best prospect by Amazin’ Avenue coming into the 2023 season, expectations were high for the right-hander coming into his first full season, but he did particularly not live up to them. Assigned to the Brooklyn Cyclones to start off the season, the right-hander posted a 3.09 ERA in 81.2 innings, allowing 55 hits, walking 46, and striking out 112. He struggled early on, posting a 5.34 ERA in 32.0 innings in April and May with 24 hits allowed, 25 walks, and 46 strikeouts before righting the ship to a degree and posting a 1.63 ERA in 49.2 innings in June and July with 31 hits allowed, 21 walks, and 66 strikeouts. At the beginning of August, he was promoted to Double-A Binghamton and never really got into a groove there. Making 8 starts, he posted a 4.72 ERA in 34.1 innings for the Rumble Ponies with 32 hits allowed, 17 walks, and 41 strikeouts. All in all, he posted a combined 3.57 ERA in 116.0 combined innings in 2023, allowing 87 hits, walking 63, and striking out 153, second-most in the system behind only Dominic Hamel.
Tidwell remained in Binghamton to start the 2024 season, but unlike 2023, got off to an excellent start thanks to a new cutter that he added to his repertoire over the winter. Appearing in 7 games, the 23-year-old right-hander posted a 2.41 ERA in 37.1 innings and earned himself a promotion to Triple-A Syracuse in late May, much earlier than most would’ve predicted. From there, his season unfortunately went sour. Appearing in 19 games for the Syracuse Mets, he posted a 5.93 ERA in 85.0 innings, allowing 80 hits, walking 53, and striking out 77. While the International League has become an extremely hitter-friendly league, with a league average ERA of 4.83 in 2024, his ERA was a full run higher than the league average, his 5.6 BB/9 was over a walk higher than the 4.3 league average, and his 8.2 K/9 was a full strikeout lower than the 9.3 league average. All in all, Blade Tidwell was a below-average pitcher for the majority of the season, as he combined to post a 4.86 ERA in 122.1 combined innings, allowing 109 total hits, walking 64, and striking out 121.
At 6’4”, 205-pounds, Tidwell has solid pitching frame. The right-hander has a little bit of violence in his delivery, throwing from a high-three-quarters arm slot with a quick, whippy arm and long action through the back. He is more of a control-over-command pitcher as a result, missing his spots but staying in the strike zone, which explains why he sometimes gets a bit homer prone and allows more hits than a pitcher with his kind of strikeout stuff generally does.
Tidwell has a large repertoire of pitches; he throws two fastballs, a four-seam variant and a two-seam variant, a harder gyro slider, a softer sweeping slider, a cutter, a curveball, and a changeup. In 2024, while pitching with Syracuse, he used his four-seam fastball 37.4% of the time, his cutter 20.8% of the time, his sweeping slider 14.3% of the time, his gyro slider 11.9% of the time, his two-seam fastball 7.7% of the time, his changeup 6.2% of the time, and his curveball 1.7% of the time.
His four-seam fastball averaged 95 MPH in 2024, topping out at 98 MPH and averaging a 2225 RPM spin rate. At its best, the pitch can get up to 19 inches of induced vertical break when thrown up in the zone, and in general, Tidwell used the pitch up in the zone against batters of both handedness. Up in the zone, batters hit .115/.400/.115, as opposed to .336/.427/.570 everywhere else, the Automated Ball-Strike system cutting into his ability to clip the top of the zone.
His two-seam averaged 93 MPH, topping out at 96 MPH and averaging a 2080 RPM spin rate. He used the pitch more against right-handers than left-handers, throwing it inside and having the pitch bore in on them. His two-seamer was more effective than his four-seamer, with a 22.2% whiff percentage as opposed to a 16.2% whiff rate, almost three times the amount of ground balls, few fly balls, and fewer extra base hits. While batters put his two-seam fastball in play a bit more than his four-seam fastball, the damage generally was less severe, and Tidwell might be better served throwing more two-seamers than four-seamers.
His softer, sweeping slider averaged 82 MPH, sitting in the high-70s-to-mid-80s and topping out at 83 MPH. Averaging 2685 RPM, Tidwell generally got 15-20 inches of horizontal movement on the pitch and used it virtually exclusively against right-handed batters, throwing it mainly down and away. His hard, gyro slider averaged 84 MPH, sitting in the low-to-mid-80s and topping out at 88 MPH. He used it in a similar manner as his sweeping slider, throwing it mainly down and away, but with a little less horizontal movement and a little more vertical movement, he used the pitch against left-handed batters, with the pitch breaking on them down and in on them.
His newly added cutter averaged 88 MPH and was developed as a pitch to bridge between his fastball and his slider. The cutter tunnels well with his fastball and his slider, adding an additional sense of unpredictability in terms of batters picking up how the ball was going to break out of his hand. The cutter was used more against left-handed batters than it was against right-handed batters, thrown up-and-away and down-and-in to dart back in the zone or bore in on them, respectively. Against right-handed batters, he mainly threw the pitch down and away, with the pitch darting out of the zone.
His changeup sits in the low-to-md-80s, topping out at 86 MPH. The pitch has almost screwball-like reverse gyro break and was used virtually exclusively against left-handed batters. He mostly threw the pitch down and in against them, but occasionally threw it to the outside to nick either the top or bottom of the zone and steal a strike.
A high-70s curveball rounds out his repertoire, but the pitch is mainly a get-me-over offering, thrown every so often to batters who have not seen it to steal a strike, especially early in the count.
2025 Mets Top 25 Prospect List
17) Eli Serrano III
18) Trey Snyder
19) Nick Morabito
20) Dom Hamel
21) Jacob Reimer
22) Will Watson
23) Daiverson Gutierrez
24) Ronald Hernandez
25) Edward Lantigua