New York Mets 2023 Top 30 Prospect Wraps: Blake Tidwell
InsideTheMets.com will review each of the New York Mets’ Top 30 prospects, as ranked by MLB.com at the end of the 2023 season.
No. 10: RHP Blake Tidwell, Binghamton Rumble Ponies (Double-A), Brooklyn Cyclones (High-A)
Statistics for 2023: (25 games, all starts): 11-6, 3.57 ERA, 116 innings, 87 hits, 50 runs (46 earned), 14 home runs, 63 walks, 153 strikeouts, .210 opponent batting average, 1.29 WHIP.
Season Transactions: Started the season at Brooklyn. Promoted to Binghamton on July 31.
Season Summary: In his first full season Tidwell showed that he had a shot at being a starter at Citi Field one day. Along with the winning record and solid ERA, he struck out 153 hitters in 116 innings and held opponents to a .210 average. He also had just 14 home runs in 2,005 pitches. It wasn’t a hard decision for the Mets to promote him to Binghamton, where his ERA did go up by more than a point from High-A but his strikeout rate held steady.
Path Through the Organization: Tidwell has moved fast since he joined the Mets out of the University of Tennessee, where he impressed pro scouts with two quality seasons, one of which came as he worked through shoulder issues. The Mets took him in the second round in 2022 and signed him for $1.85 million. In spite of a long college postseason, the Mets let him throw and he got all the way to Single-A St. Lucie and helped those Mets clinch a postseason title with a pair of starts.
What’s next: He’s moving fast, and for good reasons. MLB.com scouts say his fastball reaches as high as 98 miles per hour. He has a slider that can break hard and break two different ways along with a curveball and change-up that have solid qualities. That’s a good enough repertoire to get a pitcher on the radar to be a MLB starter on day. That’s what the Mets are hoping to get out of Tidwell. There’s a distinct possibility that he could be at Triple-A Syracuse at some point in 2024.
2023 New York Mets Top 30 Prospect Wraps:
No. 30: Kade Morris | No. 29 Coleman Crow | No. 28 Nick Morabito | No. 27 Matt Rudick | No. 26: Joel Diaz | No. 25: Raimon Gomez | No. 24: Diego Mosquera | No. 23: Nolan McLean | No. 22: Jeremiah Jackson | No. 21: Luis R. Rodriguez | No. 20: Ronald Hernandez | No. 19: Calvin Ziegler | No. 18: Jesus Baez | No. 17: Tyler Stuart | No. 16: Dominic Hamel | No. 15: Justin Jarvis | No. 14: Brandon Sproat | No. 13: Jacob Reimer | No. 12: Christian Scott | No. 11: Alex Ramirez |
