For a second straight season Eric Orze gets an invite to major league camp for the Mets. Eric Orze was one of the six players the Mets drafted back in 2020. They traded away their first pick, Pete Crow-Armstrong for Javier Baez. They traded J.T. Ginn for Chris Bassitt. They traded away Isaiah Green in the package for Francisco Lindor. Matthew Dyer was traded for Rich Hill. Anthony Walters was released.
So the last man standing from the 2020 draft is Eric Orze.
Eric was mostly used in Syracuse last year. overall he pitched in 34 games totaling 50 1/3 innings with a 4.83 ERA and a 1.152 WHIP. While in Syracuse he was three years younger than the average player in the league. This was building off of his previous year where he posted a 3.08 ERA over 49 2/3 innings. That year he dominated in Syracuse with a 2.19 ERA and 1.135 WHIP while being four years younger than the average player.
Orze is also a double cancer survivor. When he was in college he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. A couple of years later he was diagnosed with skin cancer. I highly recommend reading Dicomo’s article as it chronicles Orze’s tough and amazing journey.
Right now Orze is listed as the Mets 29th best prospect by staff at Metsmerized and the 19th best prospect by MLB Pipeline. According to MLB Pipeline, Orze’s pitch to watch is his low-80’s splitter.
While I don’t think Orze will make the team out of spring this year (unless he completely forces the issue), I do think we’ll see him at some point this year. He has shown the ability in his two years in the minors to throw multiple innings in the same game, a definite need for the Mets depending on game script.
