2024 Player Spotlight: Brandon Sproat inning that you have and if you come out of it with a clean inning, you’re granted another one.”
Time is Flying
When Sproat and Crews, the #4 prospect in all of base- ball, last faced off it was in Game One of the 2023 Col- lege World Series Finals in Omaha. Sproat started that game for the University of Florida and Crews was on the powerhouse and eventual-national champion He was previously drafted by the Mets in the third round of the 2022 draft, but elected to return to Gainesville. Sproat gave his permission to be selected again by the Mets in ’23 with the 56th overall pick.
Since then, Sproat’s stock has skyrocketed. In the Spring Breakout game, which pinned the Mets top prospects against the Nationals top prospects, Sproat pitched a 1-2-3 sixth inning on six pitches, all strikes, includ- ing two strikeouts while reaching 99 mph. With High-A Brooklyn, Sproat pitched to just a 1.07 ERA over six ap- pearances (five starts). Over his first nine starts with Binghamton, he went 4-1 with a 2.41 ERA. Sproat’s biggest accomplishment to date was his selection on July 2 to the MLB All-Star Futures Game, an annual matchup of the game’s top prospects at the site of MLB’s Mid- summer Classic. Sproat shined on July 13 at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, pitching a scoreless bottom of the third inning in which he faced the minimum, with his fastball again being clocked as high as 99 mph. After the game, Sproat had certainly left an impression on the other Futures Game stars on the field. According to Newsday, Red Sox top prospect Marcelo Meyer said after the game “you definitely remember when you face a guy like that. He’s got electric stuff. He’s got that unique balance of throwing so hard and having such great secondary pitches. That’s literal- ly what makes a great pitcher.” On the day Sproat’s selection was announced, Mets President of Baseball Operations David Stearns was visiting Binghamton. In an interview for our pregame show, Stearns said “it’s a
tremendous credit to him and the work that he’s put in to move through our system at an incredibly rapid rate, to continue to develop and hone his craft, and he deserves that recognition so we’re really happy for him.”
Sproat’s Mindset In my first conversation with Sproat just a few days after he arrived in Double-A, he brought up unsolicited how he has worked with a mental coach since college to improve how he handled adversity on the mound. In catching up with him the day before he left for the Futures Game, Sproat reflected on
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