As the summer heats up along the East Coast, the New York Mets front office has a lot to juggle.
Obviously, the Mets have a playoff push to worry about, and the trade deadline isn't far off in the distance. But first, there's the Major League Baseball Draft to tackle on Jul. 13 in Atlanta.
New York's farm system is in a good spot right now, and quite obviously, the Mets are in win-now mode. So if they could land a college arm that would project to join the pitching staff relatively soon, that might be the best-case scenario.
That's precisely what Just Baseball's Tyler Jennings and Connor Dorney foresee. In their most recent mock draft, Jennings and Dorney projected the Mets to select University of Arkansas right-handed pitcher Gage Wood, who threw a 19-strikeout no-hitter on Monday against Murray State at the College World Series.
"If you’re looking for the ability to miss bats with the fastball, look no further than Arkansas’ Gage Wood," the author wrote.
"The secondaries haven’t quite caught up with the fastball but Wood would (see what I did there?) likely flourish as a starter in a strong Mets pitching development environment."
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Wood captured the attention of the baseball world with his no-no, but he already had plenty of buzz among the scouting community. In only 37 2/3 innings this year as a junior, he's punched out a ridiculous 69 batters, posting an ERA of 3.82.
Sadly, Wood's heroics in Omaha might have taken him out of range for the Mets. There is no trading up or down in the MLB draft like there is in the NFL or NBA, so their only hope is that he falls into their lap at 38, which seemed a lot more possible a couple of weeks ago.
Still, a mock draft is a mock draft, so at least one person believes the Mets have hope.
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