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MJ Melendez
Week: 3 G, 13 AB, .538/.571/1.231, 7 H, 0 2B, 0 3B, 3 HR, 1 BB, 2 K, 0/0 SB (Triple-A)
2026 Season: 27 G, 97 AB, .278/.358/.660, 5 2B, 1 3B, 10 HR, 12 BB, 26 K, 1/3 SB, .279 (Triple-A) / 56 G, 120 AB, .192/.315/.350, 23 H, 5 2B, 1 3B, 4 HR, 17 BB, 50 K, 0/1 SB, .284 BABIP (MLB)
It was an abbreviated week this past week because of the all-star break, but MJ Melendez had a week that would have been a candidate for Player of the Week over the course of a normal six-game week, logging two consecutive three-hit games and launching three home runs.
In 12 games with Syracuse in July, MJ Melendez is hitting .341/.431/.864 with 7 home runs. On one hand, that shows how out of whack the International League hitting environment is, but that aside, it also highlights that Melendez is a solid player to have around. Sure, in 56 games/120 at-bats with the Mets, he hit .192/.315/.350, but in the coming weeks, as the Mets begin trading the handful of assets that they do have, a theoretical opening for playing time at the major league level could open for, among others, Melendez.
Should the former Royals top prospect find himself in Queens once again, however that gets finagled, do I think that he’d all of a sudden become a world beater? While all things are possible, probably not. I don’t even know if he’d be viable at all, as he wasn’t in the 120 at-bats he had earlier in the season. With the rest of the 2026 season highly unlikely to be relevant and compelling baseball- especially if the Mets complete trades such that a player like Melendez begins seeing more regular playing time- it would be as fine a time as ever to take stock in the assets the team already has and the assets it could use in 2027 (and beyond).
Noah Hall
Week: 1 G (1 GS), 6.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 5 K (High-A)
2026 Season: 18 G (15 GS), 82.1 IP, 74 H, 48 R, 44 ER (4.81 ERA), 59 BB, 86 K, .307 BABIP (High-A)
Noah Hall was a college senior drafted in the 7th round of the 2023 MLB Draft out of the University of South Carolina, where he pitched for his junior and senior seasons to fair results after transferring from Appalachian State University; in both years combined, he had a cumulative 3.99 ERA in 117.2 innings, allowing 113 hits, walking 40, and striking out 121. He appeared in a handful of games for the St. Lucie Mets and the Brooklyn Cyclones at the end of that summer, and then appeared in a few more in the Arizona Fall League, but his career began in earnest in 2025. He spent the entire year in Coney Island and posted a 2.72 ERA in 112.2 innings over 21 starts and 4 additional appearances. He allowed 80 hits, walked 63, and struck out 115. A bit surprisingly, when the 2026 season began, the 25-year-old was not given a promotion and began the season with the Cyclones for a second straight season. He has been pitching there ever since, and unfortunately has been much less effective, posting a 4.81 ERA in 82.1 innings with 74 hits allowed, 44 walks, and 86 punch outs.
The 6’0”, 195-pound right-hander has a unique pre-delivery delivery quirk that he performs only when bases are empty, lifting his lead foot up and tapping the ground with his toe before transitioning into his windup’s leg lift. He drops and drives off the mound with good extension, throwing from a low-three-quarters, virtually sidearm, arm slot with a long arm action through the back. It is partially because of this slingy delivery that Hall does not have the best control and command, with a cumulative 14.4% BB%, but the tough angle also helps with his groundout rate and strikeout rate.
Hall is primarily a fastball-changeup pitcher, occasionally mixing in a slider. His fastball sits in the low-to-mid-90s, sitting in the lower spectrum of that range and topping out at the higher end. The pitch has a bit of arm-side life to it, partially thanks to Hall’s arm slot and partially because of the pitch’s active spin and seam orientation.
He complements it with a changeup, one of the best in the Mets minor league system currently. The pitch sits in the low-to-mid-80s, giving it roughly 10 MPH of velocity separation between it and his fastball. Like his fastball, thanks to a combination of his arm slot and the pitch’s active spin and seam orientation, the pitch has heavy arm-side fade and sharp vertical tumble.
Rounding out his arsenal is his slider. The pitch is far less refined than his changeup, but is a fringe-average offering in its own right. It is at its best when he throws it a bit harder, with more spin, tightening it up more and giving it sharper horizontal slice and harder vertical break. When the pitch is thrown slower, it gets slurvier and looser and features loopier horizontal and vertical break.
The right-hander is experiencing a sharp increase in flyballs this season. In 2025, he had a 49.3% groundball rate, 23.6 line drive rate, and 27.1% flyball rate, but this season, he currently has a 41.7% groundball rate, 20.4% line drive rate, and a 38% flyball rate. His groundball rate has decreased by roughly 10% while his flyball rate has increased roughly 10%. His HR/FB% has only slightly increased at this point, likely helped by home-run dampening stadiums in the South Atlantic League, but as evidenced by a BABIP nearly .40 points higher as compared to 2025 and an opponent batting average nearly .40 points higher, more balls are landing for hits.
