Minor League Mondays: Jonah Tong Trying To Earn Next Shot In Mets' Rotation

The struggling New York Mets have begun to make some changes, including with their starting rotation. Tobias Myers made his first start as a Met in place of David Peterson on Sunday, a move that didn't quite pay off as the Mets lost their 11th straight game. There are some intriguing longer-term fixes for the rotation in the Mets' farm system, including a player fans are very familiar with in right-hander Jonah Tong. The young righty is the focus of this week's edition of Minor League Mondays.

Jonah Tong is trying to earn his way back to the Mets' big-league rotation.

Fans began to pay close attention to Tong, the Mets' seventh-round pick in 2022, when he put together an outstanding season in 2024 in the low minors. Tong's stock took off in a big way in 2025, when he was dominant for AA Binghamton and earned a trip to the Futures Game in July. That performance earned Tong a promotion to AAA Syracuse in September and a spot in the big league rotation in September, where he flashed signs of brilliance but looked a bit overmatched against major league competition.

A lot of teams asked the Mets about Tong in trade packages during the offseason but David Stearns held onto him, instead moving Brandon Sproat in the Freddy Peralta trade. Tong entered spring training on the outside looking in for the starting rotation and was assigned to AAA Syracuse to start the year after the Mets ended camp with a healthy group of starters.

Early returns with Syracuse have been mixed for Tong, who is 0-1 with a 7.04 ERA in his first four starts. There have been good signs for Tong, who has struck out 23 batters in 15.1 innings pitched and held opposing hitters to a .193 batting average against him. Walks, however, remain a problem as he has issued 10 free passes in that same span.

Stuff has never been a question for Tong, who rates as the Mets' No. 2 prospect according to MLB.com. The best pitches in Tong's arsenal are his four-seam fastball, which has incredible movement and can go as high as 97 miles per hour, along with a solid changeup that features a Vulcan-like grip. Tong also utilizes a curveball and slider for a four-pitch makeup, but his command on the latter two is a bit suspect, which helped major league hitters expose him last September.

The early struggles appear to have placed Tong behind Christian Scott in the organization's depth chart as the first options to get recalled if the Mets need a starter from Syracuse. That is just fine for Tong, who is still just 22 years old and made only two starts above the AA level last season. More time at AAA could benefit Tong in the long term as he can refine his breaking pitches to give him more of a chance to be successful at the big league level.

It remains likely Tong surfaces in Queens at some point this season if the Mets have a need for help in their rotation. The smarter play is for the Mets to let Tong develop with Syracuse for as long as possible, increasing their chances of having him join Nolan McLean as a long-term fixture in the starting five. A potential trade can't be ruled out since Tong still has incredible value around the league, but if Stearns didn't part with him when they needed an ace over the winter it would take a very valuable return to get Stearns to move Tong now.