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Nolan McLean’s Stuff Is Even Nastier Than We Thought

The Mets rookie righty has made history through 10 big league starts.
Ryan Phillips|
New York Mets rookie starting pitcher Nolan McLean’s stuff has been even better than expected through two starts.
New York Mets rookie starting pitcher Nolan McLean’s stuff has been even better than expected through two starts. | Neville E. Guard-Imagn Images

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New York Mets

Nolan McLean is downright scary.

The Mets’ rookie righty made his second start of 2026 Thursday night and put his full arsenal on display. He made it abundantly clear that when he has his stuff dialed in, it’s virtually unhittable.

McLean carved up the Giants’ lineup, retiring the first 15 batters he faced and taking a perfect game into the sixth inning. He got a bit out of whack at that point, walking the first two batters he faced before a sacrifice fly and a Willy Adames ground rule double chased him from the game.

The 24-year-old’s final line in what was his first win of the season showed two runs allowed on one hit and two walks with four strikeouts in 5 1/3 innings. That didn’t tell the whole story.

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McLean’s stuff was downright nasty and, based on his first start of the season and his performances for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic, it is only getting better. He checked in at No. 7 on our preseason top 50 MLB prospects list, and that may have been too low.

In 2025, McLean made eight starts at the big league level, going 5–1 with a 2.06 ERA, 1.04 WHIP, and 57 strikeouts against 16 walks in 48 innings. He showed ace-level stuff, though he still had much to refine, and his control issues from the minors were still something to monitor. So far, so good in 2026.

According to Statcast, McLean’s average four-seam fastball velocity has jumped almost a full mph this season from 95.8 to 96.6. Here’s a look at him pumping a 98 mph fastball by Rafael Devers Thursday night:

His sinker has also jumped up a tick from 94.8 to 95.2 mph. More importantly, the sinker is now averaging 17.9 inches of arm-side run, up from 16.1 inches in 2025. That’s elite movement for a sinker. McLean made Jung Ho Lee look ridiculous as he attempted to chase one.

That thing dropped off the table like a bowling ball.

It’s not just the hard stuff that has improved. The spin rates on McLean’s breaking stuff have taken a leap forward. In 2025, his sweeper generated an average of 2,929 rpms, so far in 2026 it’s up to 3,137. Similarly, his curve clocked in at 3,248 last season and is registering at 3,313 through two starts this year. As expected, those increased spin rates have had a dramatic impact on both pitches.

In 2025, McLean’s sweeper averaged 16.8 inches of horizontal break to his glove side. In 2026, the average has jumped to 20.5 inches. He has gone from having a good movement profile on the sweeper to being elite. He threw a front-door sweeper to Heliot Ramos to get him looking on Thursday night that featured 23 inches of horizontal movement.

That is an absurd pitch.

While the curveball’s movement profile hasn’t changed a ton, he’s throwing it harder. McLean’s curve is currently averaging 81.6 mph, compared to 80 mph in 2025. He’s breaking 17.7 inches horizontally, and -15.1 inches vertically. That’s compared to 18.7 inches horizontally and -13.6 inches vertically in 2025. So it’s sweeping less but dropping more. He dropped one on Jerar Encarnacion that induced a weak swing and a strikeout.

Good luck hitting that.

McLean will also mix in a cutter that sits between 89 and 91 mph just to give a different look, and he’s still refining a changeup.

We’ve been using the great Rob Friedman’s videos throughout this piece, so it’s fair to give him one more. This is an overlay of McLean’s sweeper and sinker. It might be the most incredible one of these I’ve ever seen.

He’s almost too good.

Through 10 big league starts, McLean is now 6–1 with a 2.16 ERA, a 1.01 WHIP and 69 strikeouts against 20 walks in 58 1/3 innings. By putting up those numbers, he’s only the fourth pitcher in MLB history to strike out at least 69 batters while allowing 14 earned runs or fewer in his first 10 MLB starts. The other three are Fernando Valenzuela, Shelby Miller and Paul Skenes.

The craziest part about his ascent is how rapid it has been. McLean was a two-way player at Oklahoma State when the Mets selected him with the 91st pick in the 2023 draft. He tried hitting a bit during his first minor league season in 2024, but it was clear his future was on the mound. In 2025, he dropped the bat, focused on the mound and was in the big leagues by mid-August. Given how fast he’s improved, it’s fair to wonder if there’s even more to mine.

McLean has become appointment viewing in a hurry, and few, if any, right-handers in the game can match the sheer depth and nastiness of his arsenal.

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Ryan Phillips
RYAN PHILLIPS

Ryan Phillips is a senior writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. He has worked in digital media since 2009, spending eight years at The Big Lead before joining SI in 2024. Phillips also co-hosts The Assembly Call Podcast about Indiana Hoosiers basketball and previously worked at Bleacher Report. He is a proud San Diego native and a graduate of Indiana University’s journalism program.

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