Mets should respond to Shohei Ohtani’s reign by drafting a two-way star from Dodgers’ backyard

This season started for the New York Mets with championship dreams and nearly $400 million in payroll. But an ugly 15-25 start has laid bare a difficult truth in the early years of the David Stearns era: This team is in desperate need of more impact talent, more players with plausible paths to star-level outcomes at every position and at just about every level of the organization. New York shares a league with Shohei Ohtani and the Los Angeles Dodgers, after all; the bar is high, and it’s time to take some big swings.

Luckily, FanSided’s first MLB mock draft of the year understood the assignment. Granted, every MLB Draft prospect with any kind of two-way potential gets labeled the next Ohtani these days, and in precisely zero instances is that a fair thing to do to an 18-to-21-year-old. But it just so happens that arguably the most intriguing prospect in this year’s class stars both on the mound and in the outfield right in Ohtani’s backyard — and Stearns’ history suggests he could be the perfect fit for the Mets when their first pick rolls around at No. 27 overall.

Why Jared Grindlinger would be a perfect Mets pick in the first round of the MLB Draft

With pick No. 27, our own Zach Rotman had the Mets select LHP/OF Jared Grindlinger from Huntington Beach, Calif., just 40 miles or so south of Dodger Stadium. It’s not hard to see why: Not only has he flashed first-round upside as both a pitcher and a position player, but he just turned 17 in April, making him one of the youngest players in this class — something that will no doubt endear him to more analytically inclined front offices like the Mets.

And the projectability doesn’t stop there. Grindlinger sits mostly in the low 90s with his fastball at the moment, and he shows much better bat-to-ball ability than present pop. But again: He just turned 17. The fact that he’s already touched as high as 95-96 with his heater at that age is downright scary, and at 6-foot-3, he has a ton of filling out to do as he gets older. Combine his current profile at both positions with some added strength, and it’s easy to see him developing into a big-league starter and a big-league outfielder.

That’s a rare, rare thing, to put it lightly. Nearly a decade after Ohtani debuted in the States, we’ve still yet to really see anyone manage to stick as a full-time, two-way player. The reasons are myriad, and obvious; playing Major League baseball is really, really hard, much less doing it in two different ways that require two totally different development tracks. And it’s entirely possible that it eventually comes for Grindlinger the way it’s come for two-way prospects before him.

But that can also be spun as part of his appeal. He’s got an MLB frame with three potentially average or better pitches on the mound and advanced contact skills at the plate. There’s a real chance that he works out at both spots, and even if he doesn’t, you’re essentially getting two lottery tickets for the price of one — even if he stalls out on the mound, you still have a potential outfielder to work with, and vice versa.

And Stearns has been here before; remember, 2024 first-round pick Carson Benge was drafted as a two-way player out of Oklahoma State (as was Nolan McLean, though that came in 2023, a year before Stearns took over). He’s primarily interested in big tools and diversified risk, and Grindlinger checks all the boxes. The fact that he might be able to stick it to his hometown team is just the cherry on top.

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