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Luke Ritter may not be as big of a household name as the Mets’ top-ranked prospects, but the slugger continues making himself known down in Triple-A.
Ritter got off to a bit of a slow start after being selected in the seventh round of the 2019 Draft out of Wichita State, but he’s quickly solidified himself as one of the top power bats in the entire system.
He cracked two more home runs as part of a four-RBI effort during Syracuse’s 7-3 win to kick off their weekend series against the Leigh Valley IronPigs at NBT Bank Stadium on Friday night.
Ritter’s now posted a combined 41 home runs and 112 RBI over his last 167 games going back to last season, which is split between Syracuse and Double-A Binghamton.
While the slugger continues to produce high strikeout numbers, with 215 over that span, he’s still been able to record an extremely impressive .370 on-base percentage.
So Ritter’s not only been tearing the cover off the ball, but he’s also an on-base machine.
And on top of that, he’s shown tremendous defensive versatility, logging at least one appearance at every position except pitcher and catcher over the course of his collegiate and minor league career.
Again, the 27-year-old isn’t nearly on the level as some of the top prospects in the system, but he’s shown more than enough to deserve his first opportunity to see what he can do at the big-league level.
With new President of Baseball Operations David Stearns at the helm, the Mets have been very quick to cut ties with some of the dead-weight on their roster over the first few months of the season.
D.J. Stewart began turning things around after a slow start to the season, but he’s quickly found himself stuck in another rut as his playing time has decreased with the red-hot J.D. Martinez taking over full-time at DH.
Since Stewart does still have minor league options remaining, he should be sent back down to Triple-A if his struggles continue to get him more reps and help him regain some confidence at the plate, like Brett Baty.
While New York may prefer a left-handed bat to take his place, there’s no clear-cut option fitting that criterion, and Ritter is one of the top-performing prospects currently with the Triple-A ball club.
If that ends up being the case he’d provide a power-hitting righty off the bench, and with his defensive versatility he should be able to crack the lineup on a pretty much everyday basis.
But they decide to turn elsewhere, we should expect to see Ritter make his big league debut at some point this summer, especially if he continues to rake and the club finds themselves selling at the deadline.