Two-way star McLean highlights Mets' Day 2 focus on college pitchers

Although the Mets did not have a pick in this year’s Draft until No. 32 overall, that was not a microcosm of their event as a whole. Heading into the Draft, vice president of amateur scouting Tommy Tanous pointed out the unique opportunity that existed early in Day 2 for the Mets, who -- due to various players signing elsewhere in free agency last offseason -- had five selections over a 45-pick stretch from Nos. 91 through 135.

They used four of the five on college pitchers.

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Those results, Mets special assistant to the general manager Steve Martone says, are coincidence -- even though Martone stopped short of dismissing the trend completely. After all, this is the same organization that selected college pitchers with three of its first five picks last year, and with seven of its top 10 in 2021.

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“I mean, it’s always important,” Martone said. “The old adage you can never have too much pitching -- we live that on the Major League side every day. No team ever has enough. But it’s best available. We took whoever was at the top of our board. It just so happened to be that there was a lot of good college pitching out there, and we were able to take advantage of it.”

Here’s the full list of Mets Day 2 draftees:

Round 3: Nolan McLean, RHP/OF, Oklahoma State University
Round 3: Kade Morris, RHP, University of Nevada
Round 4: Wyatt Hudepohl, RHP, UNC Charlotte
Round 4C: A.J. Ewing, SS, Springboro (Ohio) High School
Round 4C: Austin Troesser, RHP, University of Missouri
Round 5: Zach Thornton, LHP, Grand Canyon University
Round 6: Jack Wenninger, RHP, University of Illinois
Round 7: Noah Hill, RHP, University of South Carolina
Round 8: Boston Baro, SS, Capistrano Valley (Calif.) High School
Round 9: Nick Lorusso, 3B, University of Maryland
Round 10: Christian Pregent, C, Stetson University

Of particular intrigue on that list is McLean, a two-way player whom the Mets intend to continue using both on the mound and in the outfield. The rest -- at least over the first seven rounds -- is largely a who’s who of the college-pitching ranks. Morris was a reliever for much of his college career, before converting to the rotation full time as a junior and flashing swing-and-miss stuff with 85 strikeouts over 81 1/3 innings. Then there is Thornton, the lone lefty of the bunch, who also averaged more than a strikeout per inning this spring.

For years, the Mets focused on position players at the top of their Draft boards, resulting in high picks such as Michael Conforto and Pete Alonso. The tide, for Tanous and his team, now appears to be shifting back to the mound -- whether coincidence or not.

“We just line it up and take the best available,” Martone said. “Sometimes in the middle rounds, you’re more likely to end up with college pitching, but we just lined it up and took the top of our board.”