New York Mets Gabriel Ynoa: future rotation mainstay or trade bait?

Hang on to your seats, New York Mets fans. Here is a huge surprise. There is a solid pitching prospect still in the Mets farm system. I know, you can hardly believe it.

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Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz have made the jump rather successfully thus far in 2015. You would think that the Mets would be running low on pitching prospects on their pipeline, but lo and behold, here comes another one.

Gabriel Ynoa, the Mets 22-year old righty, put himself on the prospect map in a big way with a 2013 season that earned him South Atlantic League Outstanding Pitcher honors. Ynoa went 15-4 that season, with a 2.72 ERA and a 1.02 WHIP striking out 106 in 135.2 innings.

The former international free agent — signed out of the Dominican Republic in 2009 — had another quality season in 2014 as he jumped two levels. Ynoa had a strong 14 start stint in the FSL before heading to Double-A. Once at Binghamton, Ynoa had mixed results. His good outings were great, his bad outings were rough.

This year, he is still at Binghamton, and is having a solid season. Ynoa has really been clicking over his last four starts, a span over which he has gone 3-1. He has allowed just four earned runs over those last four starts, going 30.2 innings while striking out 13 and walking just two. In fact he has issued a mere three walks over his last seven outings. His command is considered some of the best in Minor League Baseball.

Ynoa’s last start was the best of his young career. He tossed a one-hitter, going all nine innings in a dominating shutout over the Erie SeaWolves. Ynoa struck out six and walked none. The commanding performance earned him Eastern League Player of the Week honors.

So Mets fans should be excited, but not because they have yet another stud pitcher coming through. They should be excited because they have more trade bait for the looming deadline.

They need to trade him now. As already discussed, Ynoa is on fire. Being the No. 11 prospect in the New York Mets vaunted farm system — and their No. 2 rated pitching prospect on top of that — boosts Ynoa’s value a lot more right now with the way names like Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey, Syndergaard (I know technically he could be considered a product of the Blue Jays farm system, but let’s face reality) and Matz pitching so well at the big league level.

The Mets are proving this year that their pitching is fine and can win them games by themselves. They are solid in the rotation and solid in the bullpen. Where they are not solid is with the bat.

I’m not going to sit here and start rumors about who the Mets will target, but there is no denying that Ynoa and Jon Niese — no matter how bad his struggles are this season — wouldn’t warrant a bat from a team looking for new, young starters to beef up their rotations.

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Ynoa isn’t that close to being ready to help right away, but there are plenty of teams rebuilding that would take the chance on a youngster that could help a year or so down the road.

Next year, this rotation could arguably be better. Harvey – deGrom – Matz – Syndergaard and Zack Wheeler. That’s almost unfair. But for the Mets to get stronger — no matter how exciting Michael Conforto is — the Mets need offense to get to October.

Mets fans love their young pitching prospects, and they very well should. What they (and the Mets brass) need to realize is that to get something worthwhile, you need to give up something worthwhile. The red hot Ynoa could salvage not having to part with one of their guns for the 2016 rotation.

Next: 5 prospects ready for the second half of 2015

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