Nolan McLean: Up-And-Coming Dynasty Player

The final month of the season is here, so in the fantasy baseball world, the window to hunt and add an up-and-coming dynasty player is closing.

For some leagues, the playoffs have started and the ability to add players off the waiver wire should be gone. But in other leagues, there is still some time to add players.

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

A right-hander pitcher who was drafted in the third round by the Baltimore Orioles in 2022 and then by the Mets in 2023, McLean was rated as a top 100 prospect by Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus entering this season. As the 2025 season unfolded, MLB Pipeline finally caught up to what McLean was doing on the diamond as he moved up the Top 100 rankings and was ranked 34th before he joined the Mets’ staff in August.

Let’s examine why Nolan McLean has shot up the prospect lists and into the majors and is an up-and-coming dynasty player.

Career Statistics

Road to the Show

During his high school career, McLean was a standout athlete on the football field as well as the baseball diamond, and he intended to play both sports at Oklahoma State before choosing to focus on baseball once he got to Stillwater.

But he still was a two-way star as he played third base and outfield for the Cowboys when he wasn’t being used as a reliever. As a hitter, he had some success, slashing .285/.397/.595 with 19 homers and 47 RBI as a sophomore 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 glaring problem with McLean at the plate – 214 strikeouts in 616 plate appearances for a 35% strikeout rate.

That swing and miss carried over into his days in the minors. The Mets gave Nolan McLean the chance to be a two-way player, but those efforts came to an end last season as McLean had a .185/.281/.432 slash line with nine homers and 42 RBI in 146 career minor league at-bats with a massive 51% strikeout rate. Once the decision was made to have McLean focus solely on pitching, his results were outstanding, and a year later, he is now pitching in the majors.

The Tools

• Sweeper (28% usage)

If you want to know why McLean is having so much success, all you need to look at, really, is his sweeper and sinker.

The sweeper is just a nasty pitch. Thrown at an average speed of 85.3 mph, the pitch averages nearly 16 inches of horizontal break, allowing McLean to run it away from righties or throw it to the back foot of lefties.

Despite the movement, Nolan McLean has been able to throw the pitch in the strike zone 46% of the time, making it hard for opposing hitters to just lay off the pitch and watch it sail out of the zone for a ball.

Entering Friday, opposing hitters actually had the most “success” against this pitch with a .267 batting average with a .467 SLG, aided by the home run he has allowed.

• Sinker (27% usage)

While the sweeper is busy cutting across the plate, McLean also features a sinker that averages 94.4 mph and has topped out at 97.4 mph. Like his sweeper, the sinker has great horizontal movement, averaging about 16 inches of break. Unlike his sweeper, which averages 0.4 inches of downward movement (gravity not accounted for), the sinker averages just over two inches of vertical movement.

Hitters are hitting only .148 against the pitch with a .185 SLG. And the overall result of McLean’s sweeper and sinker is a remarkable 66.1% ground ball rate. Opponents are simply unable to get the two pitches into the air, much less barrel the ball.

• Curveball (17% usage)

Here we are on his third pitch, and we are still not talking about the most traditional pitch in baseball – the four-seam fastball.

McLean’s third-most used pitch with the Mets is his curve, which averages 80 mph and has outstanding horizontal and vertical movement. The pitch is averaging 18 inches of horizontal movement while diving an average of 13 inches down (gravity not accounted for).

Like his first two pitches, Nolan McLean is dominating hitters with this pitch right now, limiting them to a .133 batting average and .133 SLG. Even more impressive is the 40.7% whiff rate he is getting with the pitch.

• 4-Seam Fastball (15% usage)

Finally, the 4-seam fastball! What kind of world do we live in when a pitch that has an average speed of 95.3 mph and tops out at 97.6 mph is used as the fourth most pitch? But that is what McLean does with his 4-seamer.

He unleashes one pitch after another with great spin to then unleash the 4-seamer. The results are showing that this way of attacking the hitters is working as hitters have only a .111 batting average and .111 SLG against the pitch with a 44% whiff rate. That’s right, a 44% whiff rate against a pitch that is thrown in the strike zone 66% of the time.

• Changeup (6% usage)/Cutter (6.0% usage)

McLean isn’t just happy throwing four pitches. He also will show a changeup and cutter. The change comes in at 86.3 mph and currently sports a .000 batting average against it and 30.8% whiff rate.

Meanwhile, the cutter is thrown at 90.6 mph and is thrown in the strike zone 87% of the time with a 26.7% whiff rate.

The Verdict

For a player who did not have gaudy pitching stats in college, much less his first full season as a professional, Nolan McLean has kind of snuck up on a lot of dynasty players. But one of the reasons for those not-so-great pitching numbers was the fact that McLean was also working on being a hitter.

Once that was pushed to the side, McLean has become a much better pitcher on the mound. He went from a pitcher with a 4.27 ERA and 1.208 WHIP with a 9.5 K/9 rate in 2024 to one 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 rate above 10 to also be a pitcher who can induce so many ground balls. But that is what McLean does and does well and is seemingly getting better at doing. In 2024, his ground ball rate in the minors was 49.6%. This season it was at 54.7% down on the farm, and in the majors, it is over 66%.

Used basically only in relief in college, the Mets have groomed McLean to be a starter, and with the wide array of pitches he uses, it was a smart move. McLean can blow the ball past hitters if/when needed thanks to his fastball, but he is also showing the ability to be a great pitcher, using his sweeper and sinker to get easy outs on the ground.

At some point, opposing hitters will get a better scouting report on McLean and adjust to his sweeper and sinker. But that is where his 4-seamer comes into play, as well as the curve. All four of those pitches are above average. So if batters do adjust to the sweeper and sinker, McLean can shift his focus to the curve and 4-seamer and still be successful.

McLean has become a hot ticket in Yahoo and ESPN leagues as he is rostered in 70% of Yahoo leagues and 63.5% of ESPN leagues. If you can’t outright add him right now, he should be a nice trade target during the offseason.

Thanks for reading, and come back again next week.