The Rockaway Wave
Originally Published June 20, 2025
Right now, the Brooklyn Cyclones have nine position players who are ranked inside the Mets’ top 30 prospects on MLB Pipeline. There are nine spots in a lineup, and, with the right defensive configuration, all nine can play at once.
Estarling Mercado is not one of those nine players. He’s not a high draft pick. He didn’t sign a lucrative international free agent deal as a teenager. He’s not, at least for now, a highly touted prospect.
But more often than most expected coming into the season, he’s been too good to be relegated to the bench.
“Everybody has their chances of playing, even if you’re not playing every day, you’re still getting out there enough times for you to show what you can do,” Cyclones manager Gilbert Gómez said. “And it’s a competition, some guys are gonna play more than others, that’s just the reality. But [Mercado] has fought his way into the lineup more times than not.”
Among Cyclones hitters, Mercado’s 35 games played are 10th. He’s appeared in about 55% of Brooklyn’s games and is behind all nine of the players on MLB Pipeline’s top 30 list.
“[I] leave here every day wanting to play tomorrow, and [I] see the lineup and [I’m] not playing, that doesn’t mean [I] stop working,” Mercado said through Cyclones hitting coach Bryan Muñiz, who was acting as an interpreter. “[I’ve] always appreciated the opportunities. Whenever [I] see [my] name’s in the lineup, [I’m] always ready because [I] get ready the night before like [I’m] playing every day.”
Mercado signed with the Mets in June of 2022 out of Santiago de los Caballeros in the Dominican Republic. He grew up a big fan of Starling Marte, who is in the final year of a 4-year deal he signed with the Mets in 2021. Mercado now trains with Marte in the Dominican Republic during the offseason.
“It’s a joy, it’s awesome, it’s unreal to be able to train with someone that you looked at videos and you wanted to be like growing up,” Mercado said. “Having that opportunity, and being with him in spring training, and still able to talk to him and see him in spring training, it’s been great. It’s been a blessing.”
He signed when he was 19 years old and didn’t play his first professional baseball game until he was 20 — older than most who sign as international free agents. He said he had offers when he was 16 and 17, a more traditional age for players to sign, but his agent at the time did not agree with the signing bonus offered, so he didn’t sign.
He said he kept working with the goal of hitting for more power, and received a tryout with the Mets after scouts watched him play in a few games. That led to an offer, which he accepted.
Mercado had just 11 at-bats in 2023, his first season in the organization, all with the Florida Complex League Mets. He skipped the Dominican Summer League. To begin 2024, what would be his first full season playing professional baseball, he was assigned to Single-A St. Lucie.
It wasn’t a terrible year, but it didn’t go great. Mercado hit .177/.320/.371/.691 in 60 games for St. Lucie, walking a lot, but striking out way too much and not making nearly enough quality contact. Still, he was promoted to Brooklyn for the final month of the season, but it was more of the same over 13 games for the Cyclones.
In 2025, he looks like a completely different hitter. It’s shown not only in his stats, but also literally, in the batter’s box, where Mercado has made changes to his stance and swing. Gómez said he has calmed down a lot of his movements, gets ready earlier, raised his hands off his shoulder, and narrowed his feet.
The changes allow Mercado to simplify his approach, letting him see the ball longer, get the barrel out quicker, and overall feel more comfortable in the box.
He’s seen improvement virtually across the board, but nowhere more important than his strikeout numbers. Last year, Mercado struck out 33.1% of the time, the sixth-highest strikeout rate of the 47 Mets minor leaguers with at least 200 plate appearances. This year, his strikeout rate is down to 22%, which is right in the middle of the pack.
“That to me is the biggest factor in him having a better year, just the ability to stay locked in the zone and swing at pitches that are strikes,” Gómez said. “Now the next step will be making sure that he’s swinging at the pitches that he can drive and do damage with, hit the ball out of the yard a little more with that kind of power. But, it’s baby steps, it’s a process, and he’s been able to continue to take steps towards the goal that he wants to get to.”
Mercado’s carrying tool, or his best trait, is his power. One of the times it stood out to Gómez was in an at-bat from earlier this season, when in a 3-2 count, Mercado pulled a 99 mph fastball that was about a ball’s length inside 113 mph off the bat. Mercado remembers it too.
“[I] battled that at-bat,” Mercado said. “[I] remember [I] spit at some pitches, and [I] knew that he threw hard, so [I] knew that he was gonna go with his best pitch, which is the fastball, in the 3-2 count. And [I] just trusted my turn, got the barrel in front, and did some cool stuff.”
His power hasn’t always shown in games. In 35 games for Brooklyn in 2025, Mercado is hitting .272/.364/.412/.776 with three home runs, five doubles and one triple — showing some extra base hit power — but the coaching staff knows there’s more in there.
“When you sign at that age, you usually don’t get a lot of opportunities,” Gómez said. “But he has one thing that makes him special, which is he can hit the ball extremely hard. I’m talking
about 116 [mph] off the bat. That’s not common. The bat speed is there, and now the ability to work an at-bat, it seems that he has that feel for hitting that we didn’t see in the past.”
The organization believes in him, Gómez said. It’s now about how much they can help him develop.
“We do want to go down that road and see how much better he can get, because he has that one skillset that can translate,” Gómez said.
A left-hand hitter, Mercado went just 1-for-37 last season vs. left-hand pitching. This season, he’s 6-for-21.
“[I’m] treating lefties as if they’re right-handers,” Mercado said. “The pitches are gonna cross the plate maybe a little different, but at the end of the day, if they’re crossing the plate [I] know [I] can hit it.”
Mercado has also been one of the team’s best with runners in scoring position this season, hitting .294/.490/.471/.961 in 34 at-bats. His average in those situations ranks sixth on the team among the 14 players with at least 10 games played, and his OPS ranks second, trailing only 2024 first- round pick Carson Benge.
It’s one of the reasons Gómez and his staff have gained trust in him, and why he’s seen his playing time grow.
“Eventually, he’s gonna continue to play more and more and more, but it’s up to him,” Gómez said. “It’s up to how quickly he can continue to get better. It’s up to us to give him the resources that he needs to get better, and go from there.”
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