Next up on our list is a right-handed pitcher.
Name: Dominic Hamel
Position: RHP
Born: 3/02/1999
Height: 6’2”
Weight: 240 lbs.
Bats/Throws: R/R
Acquired: 2021 MLB Draft, 3rd Round (Dallas Baptist University)
2024 Stats: 27 G (27 GS), 124.2 IP, 141 H, 95 R, 94 ER (6.79 ERA), 77 BB, 124 K, .334 BABIP (Triple-A)
After lettering twice at Hamilton High School in Chandler, Arizona, Dominic Hamel went on to graduate and attend Yavapai College, a community college in Prescott, Arizona. He posted a 2.67 ERA in 67.1 innings in his freshman year and a 3.68 ERA in 73.1 innings in his sophomore year. His peripheral numbers in 2018 were excellent, with 29 walks and 79 strikeouts, but he regressed a bit in 2019, walking 44 and striking out 84. His 2019 sophomore season would end up being his last at Yavapai, as he transferred to Dallas Baptist University for the 2020 season, his junior year.
Appearing as the Patriots’ Sunday starter, the 21-year-old Hamel started four games before the NCAA cancelled the remainder for the 2020 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In those 4 starts, he posted a 4.58 ERA in 19.2 innings, allowing 13 hits, walking 7, and striking out 27. He went undrafted in the 2020 MLB Draft and returned to Dallas Baptist in 2021. He was the Patriots’ Friday night ace, throwing 91.2 innings with a 4.22 ERA, allowing 68 hits, walking 34, and striking out 136, a Dallas Baptist record and the most in the Missouri Valley Conference that year by a wide margin. With their third-round draft pick, the Mets selected Hamel, signing him for $755,300, exactly the MLB-assigned slot value.
Hamel threw a handful of innings that summer with the FCL Mets, but his professional career began in earnest in 2022. Assigned to the St. Lucie Mets along with the many other college pitchers that the Mets drafted in the rounds following Hamel’s selection, the 23-year-old right-hander posted a 3.84 ERA in 63.1 innings over 14 games with 48 hits allowed, 29 walks, and 71 strikeouts. He was promoted to the Cyclones in early July and finished the season in Brooklyn, posting a 2.59 ERA in 55.2 innings over 11 games with 35 hits allowed, 25 walks, and 74 strikeouts. All in all, the right-hander had a successful season, posting a combined 3.25 ERA in 119.0 innings, allowing 83 hits, walking 54, and striking out 145, the most by a minor leaguer in the entire organization in 2022.
The right-hander was promoted to the Binghamton Rumble Ponies in 2023 and pitched there for the entire season. Appearing in 26 games, starting 25 of them, Hamel posted a 3.85 ERA in 124.0 innings, allowing 108 hits, walking 49, and striking out 160. His strikeout total once again led the minor league system for the second consecutive year. Hamel cracked the top 10 in Amazin’ Avenue’s 2024 Top 25 Prospect list, getting ranked at 10, but he had about as disastrous a season as a player can have. Hamel did not start off strong, but then tail off, or start the year out slowly but end on a high note; from April until September, he was just plain bad. Making 27 starts for the Syracuse Mets, Hamel posted a 6.79 ERA in 124.2 innings, allowing 141 hits, walking 77, and striking out 124.
Standing 6’2” and weighing 205 pounds, Hamel has a solid pitching frame. He leads the Mets minor league system in innings pitched since being drafted, throwing the third-most innings in 2024, the most innings in 2023, the third-most in 2022, and logged nearly 100 innings additional in his 18 starts with Dallas Baptist in 2021 prior to being drafted. The right-hander throws from a high-three-quarters arm slot, with a long action through the back. He drops and drives off the mound with a low release point and a bit of crossfire. These mechanics are not inherently problematic in relation to his control, but his command occasionally comes and goes based on how his different pitches are moving on any given appearance.
Hamel has a large repertoire of pitches, throwing a four-seam fastball, cutter, slider, curveball, and changeup. In 2024, he threw his fastball 44.4% of the time, followed by his slider at 25.9%, his cutter at 12.8%, his changeup at 10%, and his curveball at 7.0%. Against right-handed batters, he generally was a two-pitch pitcher, using his fastball and slider about equally with his first pitch, going with his fastball if the batter was ahead in the at-bat or his slider he was ahead, and then generally using either to notch the strikeout. Against left-handed batters, he mainly stuck with his fastball for all situations at anywhere between a 40-60% rate, mixing in his other pitches as needed; when ahead or in two-strike situations, while still leaning on his fastball, he went with his curveball and changeup at roughly 20% rates apiece.
Hamel’s fastball averaged 92.8 MPH in 2024, which is down roughly 1 MPH as compared to 2023, but still very much where it has sat over the course of his entire professional career, sitting 90-95 MPH. The pitch had a slightly above-average spin rate for a four-seam fastball with an average of 2,360 RPM and produced a slightly above-average 17.1 inches of induced vertical break, making it most effective up in the zone. Just upstairs, above the zone, batters hit .154/.468/.333 against his fastball, as opposed to .321/.419/.508 everywhere else, the Automated Ball-Strike system and the Triple-A strike zone cutting into his ability to clip the top of the zone.
His sweeping slider averaged 80 MPH and sat anywhere from the high-70s to the low-80s. Averaging roughly 2625 RPM, the pitch averaged around 15 inches of horizontal movement and resulted in more called and swinging strikes per capita than any of his other pitches. Batters hit .197/.296/.402 against it, and it was by far his most effective secondary offering. Hamel recently added a cutter to his repertoire sometime in 2023, and that pitch was most certainly his least effective offering. The pitch averaged 88.8 MPH, ranging anywhere from the mid-80s to the low-90s, and was extremely hittable, with hitters punishing it to the tune of a .436/.500/.727 batting line.
Prior to going pro, Hamel’s best secondary pitch was his curveball, a true 12-6 offering that averaged 74 MPH and sat anywhere from the low-to-high-70s. The pitch is mainly used against left-handed hitters and is fairly effective against them, but he rarely uses the pitch; its effectiveness may be more in stealing strikes than quality. The same goes for his changeup, which averaged 84.5 MPH in 2024, generally sitting in the low-to-mid-80s but sometimes topping out in the high-80s. Batters hit the pitch, but he generally was able to limit the damage that it did.
All in all, Hamel lacks high-end stuff, forcing him to live on and around the edges of the strike zone. Against less disciplined hitters, this can be an effective strategy, but against hitters who are willing to wait for pitches to take, or when the ABS system is in place, it can have the effect of elevating his pitch count, elevating his walk rate, and forcing him to throw in the zone, where hitters can do real damage with pitches they can handle.
2025 Mets Top 25 Prospect List
21) Jacob Reimer
22) Will Watson
23) Daiverson Gutierrez
24) Ronald Hernandez
25) Edward Lantigua