Next up on our list is a right-handed pitcher.
Name: Brandon Sproat
Position: RHP
Born: 9/17/2000
Height: 6’3”
Weight: 215 lbs.
Bats/Throws: R/R
Acquired: 2023 MLB Draft, 2nd Round (University of Florida)
2024 Season: 6 G (5 GS), 25.1 IP, 12 H, 4 R, 3 ER (1.07 ERA), 16 BB, 33 K, .216 BABIP (High-A) / 11 G (11 GS), 62.1 IP, 39 H, 17 R, 17 ER (2.45 ERA), 15 BB, 77 K, .246 BABIP (Double-A) / 7 G (7 GS), 28.2 IP, 36 H, 25 R, 24 ER (7.53 ERA), 11 BB, 21 K, .330 BABIP (Triple-A)
Though he really didn’t spend much time on the mound growing up as a kid, Brandon Sproat possessed a fastball that sat in the high-80s-to-low-90s and a full arsenal of effective secondary pitches by the time he finally tried out for the Pace High School varsity baseball team in his junior season. His coaches were understandably ecstatic that he joined the squad, and the right hander dominated hitters all across Santa Rosa County and all over Florida. In his junior year, he posted a 1.78 ERA in 59 innings, helping lead Pace to Florida’s Class 7A State Championship Game, and in his senior season, he posted a 1.53 ERA in 32 innings. All in all, he made 27 starts and 5 relief appearances for the Pace Patriots over two seasons and posted a cumulative 1.83 ERA. The Texas Rangers selected the right-hander in the 7th round of the 2019 MLB Draft and expected him to accept their over-slot offer, but the right-hander elected to honor his commitment to the University of Florida instead, looking to really develop as a pitcher with the Gators.
Sproat missed most of his freshman season thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, appearing in 4 games out of the bullpen at the beginning of the season prior to the suspension of cancellation of the season, and posted a 1.50 ERA in 6.0 innings with 2 hits allowed, 3 walks, and 8 strikeouts. He supplemented his time on the mound by pitching in the Texas Collegiate League in the summer of 2020, playing for the Tulsa Drillers. The right-hander posted a 3.48 ERA in 10.1 innings, allowing 6 hits, walking 11, and striking out 7.
In 2021, he returned to Florida and appeared in 16 total games, starting 2 midweek games and making 14 appearances out of the bullpen. All in all, he posted a 6.65 ERA in 21.2 innings, allowing 29 hits, walking 15, and striking out 18. That summer, he made a brief appearance with the Chatham Anglers of the Cape Code League, allowing 3 earned runs in 2 innings with 3 hits allowed, 4 walks, and 2 strikeouts. In 2022, his junior season, Sproat established himself as Florida’s Saturday starter and top starter following the injury to Hunter Barco. Making a team-high 16 starts, the right-hander posted a 3.41 ERA in 89.2 innings, allowing 84 hits, walking 33, and striking out 82. Expected to get selected sometime early on the second day of the 2022 MLB Draft, the Mets selected him with their third-round selection, the 90th pick overall, but the two sides were unable to agree to terms, with Sproat returning to Florida to fulfill a promise that he made to his parents to graduate college and to fulfill a promise to his classmates and fans of the school to bring a championship to Gainesville.
Sproat appeared in 19 games for the Gators as the staff ace in 2023 and posted a 4.66 ERA in 102.1 innings with 81 hits allowed, 43 walks, and 134 strikeouts. The Gators made the College World Series, defeating the University of Virginia in the first round, Oral Roberts University in the second round, and TCU in the semifinals. In the finals, Florida took on LSU, with Sproat taking the mound in Game One, matching up against Tigers ace Ty Floyd. Sproat pitched four innings, allowing two runs on six hits, with five walks and seven strikeouts. He did not factor into the decision, with LSU winning in extra innings 4-3. LSU ended up winning the exciting best-of-three series, and Brandon Sproat’s career at the University of Florida came to an end. As a Florida Gator, he appeared in 56 games, starting 37 of them and tossing 223.2 total innings. He posted a cumulative 4.27 ERA with 202 hits allowed, 99 walks, and 242 strikeouts. Having given the Mets permission to potentially select him a second time around prior to the start of the 2023 MLB Draft, the Mets did indeed select him a second time, this time in the second round, the 56th player selected overall. The two sides agreed to a $1,474,500 signing bonus, exactly the MLB-recommended slot value, and Sproat finally became a professional baseball player. He did not suit up for the Mets for the remainder of the season.
The right-hander came into the season ranked the Mets’ 14th top prospect on Amazin’ Avenue’s top prospect list and started the season with the Brooklyn Cyclones, but it quickly became apparent that he was too much for High-A batters. He appeared in 6 games for the Cyclones, starting 5 of them, and posted a 1.07 ERA in 25.1 innings, allowing 12 hits, walking 16, and striking out 33. He was promoted to Binghamton in mid-May and was just as good against Double-A hitters. In 62.1 innings over 11 starts, he posted a 2.45 ERA with 39 hits allowed, 15 walks, and 77 strikeouts, doing things like posting the highest Game Score (84) of any Mets minor league pitcher in a game against the Harrisburg Senators in early June and striking out 11 consecutive batters in a game against the New Hampshire Fisher Cats in early August. He was promoted to the Syracuse Mets following that aforementioned game against New Hampshire, but the good times stopped rolling. The right-hander allowed six earned runs- a season high- in his first start, and things did not get better as time went on. Due to a combination of reasons, Sproat ended up posting a bloated 7.85 ERA in 28.2 innings over 7 starts with Syracuse, allowing 36 hits, walking 11, and striking out 21. Despite its poor ending, the right-hander had a successful season and catapulted his name into the discussion not only for Mets top prospect, but among the best nationally as well.
At 6’3”, 210 pounds, Sproat has a solid pitching frame that should be able to log innings, with an athletic frame and solid lower half. The right-hander throws from a three-quarters arm slot with a long, whippy arm action through the back. His delivery is fairly simple with few moving parts, and he repeats that well. He struggled repeating his release point throughout his time at Florida, but made major improvements in that regard since turning pro; most notably, his arm lagged behind his body slightly at foot strike, and the Mets had him raise his arm slot a bit and be less crossfired to prevent that from happening.
Sproat’s quick arm generates easy, plus velocity. His fastball consistently sits in the mid-to-high-90s, topping out at triple digits. Sproat’s fastball has a naturally low spin rate, hovering around 2,000 RPM, and the Mets worked with the right-hander to use the pitch as a more traditional four-seam fastball than a sinker, throwing it up in the zone more instead of low or inside.
While pitching in High-A and Double-A in 2024, the pitch was highly effective, to the point that sometimes he would fall in love with the pitch and get outs by being more of a brute force thrower than a pitcher, blowing it by hitters. In Triple-A, due various factors from to the ball and high run scoring environment to fatigue to the Automatic Ball-Strike system, Sproat’s fastball was not effective at all. While none of his pitches were particularly effective in his brief time with Syracuse, his fastball was especially ineffective, with hitters batting .347/.434/.653 against it, their batting average nearly .100 points higher and their slugging percentage nearly .200 points higher than anything else in his repertoire.
Complementing his fastball, Sproat throws a slider, changeup, and curveball. Over the winter of 2023, the Mets worked with the right-hander to add a sweeping slider to his repertoire in addition to his almost cutter-like gyro slider, and not only did he take to the additional pitch quickly, but it improved his overall repertoire as a whole; his above-average fastball became an almost certainly plus pitch, his above-average slider became an arguably an above-average-to-plus pitch, and his above-average changeup became arguably an above-average-to-plus pitch. Only his curveball, which was a fringe-average offering, did not improve.
His slider is his main strikeout pitch, be it his upper-80 gyro variant with tight break or his low-to-mid-80s sweeping variant. Both pitches tunnel excellently with his fastball and fool batters, with short slice with his gyro slider to longer, more planar movement with his sweeper. His changeup sits in the mid-80s and tunnels well with his fastball as he maintains his arm speed well. While he is able to generate strikes and strikeouts with it, the pitch more often induces ground balls from weak contact. His curveball sits in the upper-70s-to-low-80s with 12-6 break, though sometimes it can get less top-down and become slurvy. While he can bury it below the zone for strikeouts, it is a soft, floaty pitch and is mainly used as a get-me-over offering.
The right-hander generally relies on his fastball to get ahead of batters and into two-strike counts. Against left-handers, despite having an excellent changeup, he generally relies on his fastball as his main strikeout pitch, switching to his slider and changeup at almost a half and a quarter of the time comparatively. Against right-handed batters, once he is in a two-strike situation, he uses his fastball and slider almost at equal percentages.
2025 Mets Top 25 Prospect List
01) Brandon Sproat
02) Jett Williams
03) Carson Benge
04) Jonah Tong
05) Nolan McLean
06) Drew Gilbert
07) Ryan Clifford
08) Luisangel Acuña
09) Jesus Baez
10) Ronny Mauricio
11) Jonathan Santucci
12) Jeremy Rodriguez
13) Boston Baro
14) Nate Dohm
15) Marco Vargas
16) Blade Tidwell
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