Nolan McLean: Emerging dynasty player

The last month of the season is here, so in the Fantasy Baseball World is the window to hunt and add an emerging dynasty player.

For some competitions, the play -offs started and the possibility of adding players from the wire of exemption must have disappeared. But in other competitions there is still some time to add players.

With that in mind I am going to talk about it Nolan McLean from the New York Mets.

A righthander pitcher who was drawn up in the third round by the Baltimore Orioles in 2022 and then by the Mets in 2023, McLean was judged as a top 100 output by Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus that came in this season. While the 2025 season unfolded, MLB pipeline finally got what McLean was doing on the diamond when he raised the top 100 ranking list and was ranked 34th before he joined the Mets’s staff in August.

Let us investigate why Nolan McLean shot the prospect lists and in the Majors and is an emerging dynasty player.

Career statistics

Way to the show

During his career in high school, McLean was a striking athlete on the football field and the baseball diamond, and he planned to play both sports in Oklahoma State before he chose to concentrate on baseball as soon as he came in still water.

But he was still a two -way star when he played third base and outfield for the cowboys when he was not used as a reliever. As a Slagman he had some success, in which he .285/.397/.595 with 19 gays and 47 RBI was cut in 2022. For his career at Oklahoma State he had a .270/.396/.561 Slash line with 36 home runs and 96 RBI in 146 games. But there was one striking problem with McLean on the plate – 214 Strikeouts in 616 plate performances for a strike output of 35%.

Those Swing and Miss transferred in his days in the minors. The Mets gave Nolan McLean the chance to become a two-way player, but those efforts came to an end last season when McLean had a .185/.281/.432 Slash line with nine gayers and 42 RBI in 146 career Minor League AT-Bats with a solid strikeout of 51%. As soon as the decision had been made to let McLean only focus on pitching, his results were excellent and a year later he now throws in the Majors.

The tools

If you want to know why McLean is so successful, the only thing you have to look at is really, his wipe and zinc shed.

The sweeper is only an annoying pitch. Throwed with an average speed of 85.3 mph, the pitch is on average almost 16 centimeters of horizontal break, so that McLean can run away from the right side or throw it to the rear foot from the left.

Despite the movement, Nolan McLean has been able to throw the field in the percussion zone for 46% of the time, making it difficult to oppose Hitters to just fire the field and see it sailing out of the zone for a ball.

Entering on Friday, opposing batters actually had the most “success” against this field with a .267 battle average with a .467 SLG, helped by the home run he allowed.

While the sweetheart is busy cutting the plate, McLean also has a zinc shed that is on average 94.4 mph and is covered at 97.4 MPH. Just like his sweeper, the zinc shed has a large horizontal movement, on average about 16 centimeters break. In contrast to his sweeping machine, which is on average 0.4 centimeters downward movement (gravity not justified), the zinc shed is on average slightly more than two centimeters vertical movement.

Hitters hit the field alone .148 with a .185 SLG. And the total result of McLean’s wipe machine and zinc shed is a remarkable 66.1% ground ball percentage. Opponents are simply unable to get the two fields in the air, let alone the ball barrel.

Here we are on his third throw and we are still not talking about the most traditional pitch in baseball-de fastball with four seas.

McLean’s third most used pitch with the Mets is his curve, which has an average of 80 mph and an excellent horizontal and vertical movement. The pitch is on average 18 inch horizontal movement while diving an average of 13 centimeters down (gravity is not justified).

Just like his first two fields, Nolan McLean currently dominates hitters with this pitch, which limits them to a stroke average of .133 and .133 SLG. Even more impressive is the 40.7% touch that he gets with the pitch.

• 4-Seam Fastball (15% use)

Finally the 4-Seam Fastball! In what kind of world do we live as a pitch with an average speed of 95.3 mph and tops at 97.6 mph is used as the fourth most pitch? But that is what McLean does with his 4-seizer.

He unleashes one field after the other with a great spider and then unleashes the 4-sentence. The results show that this way to attack the batters works, because hitters only have a .111 stroke average and .111 SLG against the field with a scent of 44%. That’s right, a 44% hint at a pitch that is thrown in the battle zone 66% of the time.

• Change (6% use)/cutter (6.0% use)

McLean is not only happy to throw four fields. He will also show a change and cutter. The change comes to 86.3 km / h and currently has a stroke average of one .000 against it and 30.8% touch.

In the meantime, the cutter is thrown at 90.6 mph and 87% of the time is thrown into the battle zone with a touch of 26.7%.

The verdict

For a player who did not have a flashy pitching statistics at the university, let alone his first full season as a professional, Nolan McLean grew up a bit with many dynasty players. But one of the reasons for those non-so-wide pitching figures was the fact that McLean also worked to be a batter.

Once that was pushed aside, McLean has become a much better pitcher on the hill. He went from a pitcher with an ERA of 4.27 and 1,208 Whip at a speed of 9.5 k/9 in 2024 to someone who had a 2.45 ERA and 1,126 Whip with a 10.1 k/9 rate this year in the minors.

It is not often for a pitcher who has a strikeout speed above 10 to also be a pitcher who can induce so much ground balls. But that is what McLean does and does well and seems to be getting better at doing. In 2024 his ground ball percentage in the minors was 49.6%. This season it was 54.7% lower on the farm and in the Majors it is more than 66%.

In principle only relieved at the university, the Mets McLean took care of to be a starter, and with the wide range of fields that he uses, it was a smart move. McLean can blow the ball past Hitters/if necessary thanks to his fastball, but he also shows the possibility of being a great pitcher, using his wipe machine and zinc shut to get easy outs to the floor.

At a certain point, opposite batters will receive a better exploration report on McLean and adapt to his sweeping machine and zinc shell. But that is where his 4-seizer comes into play, as well as the curve. All four of those pitches are above average. So if batters adapt to the wegend and zinc shell, McLean can move his focus to the curve and 4-seizer and are still successful.

McLean has become a hot ticket in Yahoo and ESPN competitions because it is roasted in 70% of the Yahoo competitions and 63.5% of ESPN competitions. If you can’t add it now, it should be a nice trade goal during the low season.

Thank you for reading and come back next week.