Minor League Mondays: Keep An Eye On Jonathan Santucci

The New York Mets' pitching pipeline has begun to regenerate over the past few years. With the advent of their state of the art pitching lab, the Mets under David Stearns are poised to restore the franchise's reputation as a pitching factory after a bit of a down spell after the billion dollar rotation of Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Zack Wheeler, Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz never lived up to their full potential together.

The upper levels of the minors have some top prospects who could factor into the major league rotation in the next year or so, highlighted by Brandon Sproat, Jonah Tong and Nolan McLean. One pitcher in the next wave to watch is lefty Jonathan Santucci, who is the focus of this week's edition of Minor League Mondays.

Jonathan Santucci was a highly regarded pro prospect when the Mets selected him out of Duke in the 2024 MLB Draft.

Santucci, 22, was the Mets' second-round pick in 2024 out of Duke. Although scouts like Santucci's stuff, his injury history with the Blue Devils caused him to slip out of the first round, where the Mets paid him full slot to sign. Like fellow Mets' farm hands Nolan McLean and Carson Benge, Santucci was a two-way player before committing to one side of the ball, giving him impressive athleticism on the mound. After opting not to have him pitch following a full college season with Duke, the Mets assigned Santucci to High-A Brooklyn this year to begin his professional career. Santucci has done well on Coney Island, going 3-4 with a 4.32 ERA in 10 appearances, including nine starts, striking out 43 batters in 41.2 innings pitched.

In terms of stuff, Santucci has two strong pitches with a fastball that sits between 92-96 miles per hour and a nasty slider that has tremendous break. Santucci's third pitch is a solid changeup that will probably need to get more play in order to give him a chance to be a starter at the big league level.

The big question concerning Santucci in college was his ability to throw strikes as he walked 36 batters in 58 innings for Duke in 2024, an unsustainably high walk rate for professional ball. Santucci's command has gotten better as a pro as he has walked just 14 batters this season, and continued improvement in that department will give him a chance to advance through the Mets' farm system. MLB.com has Santucci ranked as the Mets' 12th-best prospect overall and their fourth-best pitching prospect behind the big three of Sproat, Tong and McLean. The amount of depth that the Mets have in the pitching department in the majors and upper levels of the minors means that the Mets don't have to rush Santucci's development, giving him time to master each level as he progresses.

The next step for Santucci as a pitcher who competed in the ACC collegiately would be locking down the High-A level to earn a promotion to AA Binghamton by the end of this year. The jump from High-A to AA is often the most difficult jump a minor leaguer can make so expect the Mets to give Santucci time to master this transition.

Don't be shocked if the Mets bring Santucci to major league camp next spring if he gets to AA this summer, which would allow the team's top decision makers to get an up close look at Santucci's progress to decide the next steps of his development. A late 2026 debut appears to be the best case scenario for Santucci, but a realistic timeline could see him fighting to win a spot in the big league rotation in spring training during 2027.