Brian Metoyer, RHP, New York Mets
Baseball is generally decent at being a meritocracy, but plenty of minor leaguers over the years have been victims of bad timing. Option clocks started too soon, poorly-timed injuries, and bad org fits can all lead to not getting exactly the career your on-field talent deserved. This can be even more fraught with relievers, as the baseline for “major-league stuff” in the pen is an ever-accelerating arms race. Brian Metoyer doesn’t lack for stuff, despite being a 40th-round NAIA college pick back in 2018. He also checks the “poorly timed injuries” box, missing two full seasons in 2023 and 2024 (not to mention missing out on 2020 as well). He is now 29 years old and only made Triple-A last month. Still, despite a lot working against him, one thing is working for him: Teams will keep taking chances on a dude striking out 16 per nine. Everytime I saw Metoyer live (which was frequently in the early 2020s), he had good arm speed and obscene spin capacity. He’d routinely top 3,000 RPM with his curve and the pitch has remained a menace in the upper minors. His fastball sits around 95 but is pedestrian otherwise, and he’s leaned more on a slider/cutter-type thing. Metoyer hasn’t pitched quite well enough this year to force the issue, but this kind of reliever gets chances, whether it’s with the Mets or someone else. —Jeffrey Paternostro