Arizona Fall League Preview: New York Mets
By Olivia Reed ·
The Mets' 2026 Arizona Fall League contingent is less a showcase of prospect depth and more a medical recovery mission. Seven of their eight Surprise Saguaros missed meaningful time this season, and the point of this roster is to get them the live reps a disrupted summer took away. Read every number below with that in mind.
Cole Mathis Has Power. Now He Needs At-Bats.
Mathis came over from the Cubs in the late-June trade for David Peterson, arrived injured, went through a rehab stint, was activated in early August and landed back on the injured list a week later before returning in September. He played just 13 games for Mets affiliates, including seven at High-A Brooklyn.
What the 23-year-old showed with the Cubs' affiliates before the trade was genuinely interesting. In 14 games at Single-A Myrtle Beach, he posted a .294/.439/.765 line with seven home runs, 17 RBI and a 15.2 percent walk rate. In 25 games at High-A South Bend, he hit .260/.371/.490 with three more homers, nine doubles and a 14.7 percent walk rate. He swings at just 38.2 percent of pitches and makes contact 78 percent of the time when he does commit. Across all stops, he finished with 10 home runs, a .487 slugging percentage and a 15.3 percent walk rate over 235 plate appearances.
80Grade's profile points toward an everyday first baseman who hits for power without giving up the zone, with a compact right-handed swing and natural loft. The report ties that outlook to a full recovery from Tommy John surgery, and his below-average athleticism projects him to first base, so the bat has to carry him. Healthy AFL at-bats against upper-minors pitching will tell the Mets whether his High-A production holds up or was a small-sample spike.
Bruin Agbayani Returns from Shoulder Surgery
Agbayani, 19, joined his father Benny's former organization when the Mets acquired him from the Twins in the A.J. Minter deal at the trade deadline. Shoulder surgery limited him to 13 Single-A games across both organizations: 10 at Fort Myers before the injury, then three at St. Lucie after he returned in September. The AFL is a chance to simply play baseball again.
The left-handed-hitting shortstop's profile is built around the hit tool. In his 10 games at Fort Myers, he posted a .268/.412/.341 line with a 17.6 percent walk rate and a 5.9 percent strikeout rate. A 36.7 percent swing rate and an 83 percent contact rate tell the same story: he isn't selling out for power; he's taking pitches and making consistent contact to all fields.
Power is below average, the arm is short of the shortstop standard, and 80Grade's projection lands at second base or a utility role. But a 19-year-old with this much plate discipline has a hit-tool foundation worth protecting, and the goal is simple: stay healthy and get at-bats.
Ryan Lambert's Fastball Is a 70. The Walk Rate Is Still a Problem.
Lambert is the most projection-rich arm in this group and the most confounding. 80Grade grades his four-seam fastball at 70, averaging 97 mph and reaching 102, and pairs it with a 55-grade slider. He has worked almost entirely in relief, mostly at Triple-A Syracuse this season, and the strikeout rate holds up (26.8 percent across all levels). The walks have followed him everywhere, though: 23.2 percent of the batters he faced drew a free pass in 2026, he threw just 53.7 percent of his pitches for strikes, and he averaged 22.2 pitches per inning. Two injured-list stints, one lasting from mid-July to early September, didn't help.
Lambert has been this pitcher for a while; his promising 2025 strikeout numbers came with the same control caveat. He's 24 now, and without a third pitch, patient hitters can sit and wait. The AFL stint is about one thing: can he throw more strikes? His fastball gives him a path to a late-inning role if the command sharpens; if the walk rate stays above 20 percent this fall, the gap between the stuff and the results will keep defining his ceiling.
Calvin Ziegler's Comeback Attempt Gets Desert Reps
Ziegler's résumé reads like a medical chart: bone spur removal in 2023, a torn quad during that rehab, then Tommy John surgery in April 2024. He managed just 13.1 innings across 17 appearances in 2026, working at four levels as the organization tried to get him back into game shape. The command was shaky (a 31.2 percent walk rate and a 49.3 percent strike rate), but the sample is too small for conclusions.
80Grade's report describes a four-seamer that sits around 94 and reaches 96, an above-average curveball and enough of a starter's mix to project as a back-end starter or power reliever. His 28.1 percent whiff rate in 2026 shows the bat-missing ability is still there. The fall won't answer the big questions, but it will show whether he can fill the zone more consistently with a steady workload.
Irving Cota's High-A Numbers Deserve a Second Look
Cota doesn't have an 80Grade scouting profile, but his High-A Brooklyn numbers stand out. Across 24.2 innings in seven appearances (five starts), he posted a 0.73 ERA with a 0.77 WHIP and walked just 6.4 percent of batters faced. The strikeout rate was modest at 14.9 percent, the whiff rate sat at 21.1 percent, and he averaged 13.4 pitches per inning, a genuinely efficient rate. In his one Double-A start at Binghamton, the results flipped: five earned runs and nine hits in 4.2 innings.
He wins through strike-throwing and efficiency rather than swing-and-miss stuff. Cota missed roughly three months with an unspecified injury, which explains the AFL assignment, and the fall will help show whether that profile holds against better hitters.
A Few More Saguaros: Girton, Baro, and Prescott
Brendan Girton, 24, spent the season at Double-A Binghamton in a starter/reliever hybrid role, logging 83 innings across 33 games (15 starts). He posted a 6.72 ERA and a 1.66 WHIP and allowed 16 home runs. His fastball sits around 94 and reaches 96, and the slider gives him a usable put-away pitch. A 15 percent walk rate and 18.4 pitches per inning tell the same story as Lambert's, with less raw stuff to excuse it. Long reliever or swingman is the realistic ceiling if he throws strikes.
Boston Baro, a 22-year-old left-handed-hitting infielder, opened the season on the 60-day injured list and played only 11 rehab games between the Florida Complex League and St. Lucie. The small sample is encouraging (.324/.395/.382, 10.5 percent walk rate, 13.2 percent strikeout rate), and his 43.5 percent swing rate and 87.5 percent contact rate point to a good bat-to-ball skill. There's no power yet, with zero home runs in 38 plate appearances, and the projection is utility infielder.
Peyton Prescott is the most cautious case in the group. The 2025 fifth-round pick had Tommy John surgery around the draft, spent most of 2026 on the 60-day injured list and returned in September for one start at St. Lucie, so his AFL slot is an explicit part of the rehab progression. He has thrown 2.2 scoreless innings between that start and his Surprise opener. 80Grade's report describes a 93-95 mph fastball with a usable slider and enough control to fill the zone, projecting him as a middle reliever or swingman.
Bottom Line
The Mets' AFL group isn't built around a headline prospect; 80Grade's highest-ranked Met here is Mathis, 18th in the system. This is fall ball as make-up time. If one player's fall carries the most weight, it's Lambert. His fastball is the best tool in the group, his path to a big-league bullpen role is credible, and the command question is years old and still unresolved. Six weeks of AFL data won't fix it, but it might finally clarify whether he can throw enough strikes to use that fastball.