Stock Down: OF Khalil Lee

While some regression was to be expected from Lee’s 2021 statline — when his .274/.451/.500 slash was propped up by a .402 batting average on balls in play — his production has absolutely cratered through two months worth of game. As of Saturday, Lee was hitting .174/.296/.261 with Syracuse.

Those numbers have been posted across two separate stints in Triple-A, as Lee was shockingly demoted to Low-A St. Lucie earlier in May for an eight-game stretch. It was a move that appeared to be as much of a mental reset as a physical one, and perhaps the effects are just beginning to show. In five games since his return to Syracuse, Lee has as many extra-base hits (three) as he did in the 22 games before his demotion.

Still, it doesn’t seem like Lee is shaping up to be in the Mets’ major league plans any time soon.

Nick Plummer, who offers a similar profile on paper, has already been summoned to the majors on multiple occasions when a spot opened up. Lee was acquired by the previous baseball operations regime, and while he isn’t close to being on the 40-man chopping block, he isn’t doing much to prove that his loss would sting.

Stock Down: LF Carlos Cortes

The Mets have always been high on Cortes. They drafted him twice, skipped him over Low-A in his first full professional season, and sent him to the prestigious Arizona Fall League. But once they decided against adding him to the 40-man roster last November to protect him from the Rule 5 Draft (which ended up never happening), it became unclear what the future held.

Cortes’ game revolves around his bat, so a .168/.231/.234 line in 34 games for Syracuse was a sign of something just not clicking at the plate. It was enough for the organization to send him down to Double-A, where he hit a career-high 14 home runs in 2021, to get back on track. He’s off to just a 3-for-19 start with Binghamton.

Entering 2022, it would have been reasonable to assume that Cortes had a shot at cracking the major league team at some point during the season as a bench bat. As long as he’s taking steps backwards in his development, that simply won’t end up happening.

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