Mets prospect Brandon Sproat back on track with 18-inning scoreless streak

New York Times

11-07-2025

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — With his season spiraling and his prospect stock plummeting, New York Mets minor-league pitcher Brandon Sproat formed a realization as he sat in a dugout.
He needed to start throwing all of his pitches as hard as possible.
A couple of weeks ago, while watching a Triple-A Syracuse game in Rochester that he wasn't pitching in, Sproat said he thought to himself, 'It can't get any worse. It can only help, if anything.'
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Help? The shift in mindset marked a turning point. It's saving his season. He hasn't allowed a run since.
'It's really good to feel that feeling again,' Sproat said in an interview earlier this week.
Have a day, Brandon!!!
7 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 4 K87 pitches, 62 strikes
That's now 18 consecutive scoreless innings for Brandon Sproat in his last three starts! pic.twitter.com/yRxjHlSwaf
— Syracuse Mets (@SyracuseMets) July 11, 2025
Sproat brought an unsightly 5.95 ERA with him to Rochester. On June 28, upon deciding, in his words, 'to let it eat,' he threw six scoreless innings with six strikeouts, allowing two hits and three walks. It was his best start of the season.
Until six days later, when he looked more dominant, tossing five scoreless innings with eight strikeouts, surrendering just two hits and one walk.
Then Thursday happened. Sproat set a new standard for himself, this time going seven scoreless innings with four strikeouts, giving up only three hits and one walk.
Behind his streak of 18 consecutive shutout innings, Sproat has shaved his ERA to 4.61.
In his start on June 28 against Rochester, Sproat's four-seam fastball averaged 97.9 mph. In his prior start, on June 22, his fastball sat at 95.3 mph. It wasn't just the fastball. All of Sproat's pitches increased in velocity. For example, his curveball went from 79.3 mph to 81.2 mph. He also threw his curveball more frequently, particularly with two strikes. His curveball usage went from 14 percent on June 22 to 26 percent on June 28.
'The thought of results went out the window,' Sproat said. 'My only focus was throwing every pitch with conviction and as hard as I can every single time — that was my only thought.'
Those trends have continued. On Thursday, Sproat's four-seamer averaged 96.4 mph and he used his curveball 22 percent of the time. Aside from the data, Mets officials like how Sproat is aggressively filling the strike zone.
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'The results were good, but I wasn't so worried about the results,' Sproat said regarding his turnaround start on June 28. 'I was just super happy with how much the mentality-side changed before, during and after the outing. That's what I was pleased with.'
Sproat, 24, entered the season as the Mets' No. 1 prospect on The Athletic's Keith Law's top-20 list. Law wasn't alone. MLB Pipeline, among others, labeled Sproat as the Mets' best, too. And why wouldn't they? In 2024, he soared through the Mets' system with a 2.05 ERA and 110 Ks with 31 walks in 87 2/3 innings at the time of his promotion to Syracuse. Though he struggled upon arrival to Triple A in 2024, he turned heads with an impressive big-league spring training (his first) to start 2025. But from there, things went downhill.
When prospect publications, such as Pipeline, updated their lists mid-season, Sproat slipped out of the top spot, with other Mets hurlers such as Nolan McLean and Jonah Tong leapfrogging him. It made sense. By late June, Sproat had completed more than five innings in a start just three times.
Too often, he said, he pitched in a defensive mode, and wondered to himself after early-inning struggles, 'Oh, is this going to be another bad outing?'' Usually, that's indeed how things turned out.
'It was a little bit of a lack of confidence,' Sproat said. 'Rough outing after rough outing, of course you're going to lose a little confidence behind pitches. That led to trying to make perfect pitches. The velo may have been the same, but it definitely wasn't playing the same. There wouldn't be much life behind it.'
That has all changed. Sproat's realization in Rochester occurred to him after thinking back on what had worked for him. He experienced a similar breakthrough as a junior at the University of Florida. After struggling his first two seasons at the school, he decided to just trust his stuff more, he said. It paid off. The Mets chose him in the third round in 2022 and then, after he didn't sign, they picked him again in 2023 in the second round. After the thought came to him in the dugout, he discussed the idea with his mental strength coach, Syracuse pitching coach A.J. Sager and the Mets front office. Everyone was on board, he said.
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The timing of Sproat's breakthrough coincides with the Mets' rotation getting healthier. Though he is not on the 40-man roster, perhaps if he had pitched better earlier in the season, Sproat would've been more heavily considered for a run while New York missed, among others, starters Kodai Senga and Sean Manaea (both are expected to come off the injured list in Kansas City this weekend). He said that is not something he can dwell on. He needs to focus on maintaining the success from here.
'Obviously, there's been struggles earlier this year, and that sucks, but that's the game,' Sproat said. 'There are parts of the season where you're going to go through some learning and growing, and that was one of them. But to be able to get back to throwing every pitch that I can as hard as I can and not worrying about the outcome of it is who I am as a pitcher.'
(Photo of Brandon Sproat from spring training: Jim Rassol / Imagn Images)