The Rockaway Wave
Originally Published August 14, 2026
Trey Snyder’s offensive consistency fueling breakout
Trey Snyder was constantly making adjustments last season. One week, he’d be almost squatting in his stance. The next week, he’d be fully upright. Leg kicks. Toe taps. Every week, something was changing.
“Sometimes development looks like finding out what doesn’t work, and then we keep good tabs on that, and then really focusing on the things that are helping him trend positive,” Brooklyn Cyclones Hitting Coach Devin DeYoung said.
Snyder came into the organization with a lot of hype. A fifth-round pick in 2024, Snyder received the third-largest signing bonus of the Mets’ class, trailing just Carson Benge and Jonathan Santucci. A high school shortstop, the Mets had to pay up to get him to forgo his commitment to the University of Tennessee. They inked him for $1.32 million, a little under three times the slot value of his pick.
His first full season of pro ball didn’t go great. As a 19-year-old in Single-A, Snyder hit .220/.336/.288/.624 with just five homers and 18 extra-base hits in 115 games. Of the 120 qualified Single-A hitters in 2025, Snyder’s ISO ranked 103rd.
He was set to return to Single-A to begin 2026, but got injured in what he described as a freak accident in the first scrimmage of spring training. He said he was trying to make a diving play but wound up tearing his UCL in his non-throwing arm, which shut him down for months.
“The first week was probably the hardest,” Snyder said. “You kind of just have to accept it, and you can’t change it. You just make the most of it, which I think I’ve done a pretty good job of, preparing myself for when I am back. When I got back, I hit the ground running.”
Snyder picked up 16 hits in his first 13 games back in Single-A following his rehab assignment, including four extra-base hits. He spent 36 games at the level and hit .306/.358/.435/.793 before being promoted to High-A Brooklyn. He’s never going to hit for a ton of power, but he still almost doubled his ISO from last season. If he can live in the .115 to .150 range, that will be enough for him to be productive.
Everything is now consistent in his movement.
“I was trying to find something that worked,” Snyder said of his stance and swing in 2025. “Compared to this year, it’s like, I know I have something that’ll work. It’s just a matter of getting the right pitch.”
One important change was the ditching of the toe tap, recognizing that it was making it tough for him to time up opposing pitchers. Another big change was in his hips. He’s a little more upright while moving forward and rotating better.
“Everybody’s built a little different,” DeYoung said. “There’s a lot that can happen in your hips. We just kind of nailed that down and found the right way for him to move.”
Perhaps most importantly, he’s not thinking about his swing anymore in the box, which lets him focus on hunting pitches and being on time.
He said he just tries to have a little rhythm in the box.
“I’m a very simple mover, and I think my athleticism is my best attribute,” Snyder said. “So, what swing will make the most of that? And I think I found the simplicity of the swing and how I can be athletic.”
DeYoung said he’s now swinging how his body was designed to swing, which has freed him up.
Defensively, Snyder’s profile is interesting. An infielder throughout his life, Snyder stayed on the dirt for his short pro debut in 2024 and most of 2025. In those two seasons, he had 40 starts at second base, 37 starts at shortstop and 21 starts at third base.
On August 15, 2025, Snyder received his first start in center field. He played there seven total times over the course of the next 21 games, and has continued to spend significant time in the outfield in 2026. In fact, he’s spent far more time as an outfielder than as an infielder.
The transition has gone well. At first, Snyder said the Mets just told him to keep it simple. In his small taste of the position in 2025 and into the start of 2026, they didn’t want to overwhelm him with all the finer details.
“You’re a great athlete, just go do that out there,” Snyder said the Mets told him.
Then, it transitioned into more specifics. They worked on his setup, his reads, his angles, and emphasized getting more reps out there.
He’s started just 10 games at second base this season, and three of them came during his six- game rehab assignment in the Florida Complex League. He hasn’t spent a single inning at shortstop or third base.
In his last 23 games, he has 22 starts in the outfield. The other start was at designated hitter. Snyder actually hasn’t played the infield once since his promotion to Brooklyn on July 28. He’s even branched out to both right field and left field, but hasn’t touched the infield dirt.
“I think I’ll always be comfortable in the infield, just, I’ve played it my whole life,” Snyder said. “But the more reps I’m getting out in center, the more it becomes kind of like home. I feel pretty comfortable out there now.”
As of a couple of weeks ago, Brooklyn Cyclones Manager Eduardo Núñez said Snyder will still get some time at second base. Snyder also said he’s been told he’ll still be playing some second base, but did acknowledge that with how often he’s been in the outfield lately, it looks like it could be the beginning of a more permanent move to the outfield. It’s not something he said he thinks about much, but he has noticed how it’s been trending.
Snyder’s transition from second base to the outfield is reminiscent of how the Mets handled A.J. Ewing when he was at this stage of his minor league career, and it’s just one of a few similarities between the two players. At his best, Snyder’s profile looks a lot like Ewing’s.
Both high schoolers were selected around the same spot in the draft—Ewing at No. 134 in 2023 and Snyder at No. 144 in 2024—and the Mets went overslot to secure them. Both have spent a lot of time at second base and center field, with the outfield eventually winning out as the long- term home. The Mets had Ewing play enough second base through the minors to retain it as an option if needed, but center field pretty clearly became the priority. They appear to be taking the same approach with Snyder.
Like Ewing, Snyder doesn’t have a ton of home run pop, but should be able to pop a handful of long balls while racking up doubles and triples. He doesn’t have as much speed as Ewing, but other than that, the profiles are similar.
Ewing had his fair share of struggles in his first full minor league season, and then broke out in his second. Snyder has followed a similar path, though not quite as extreme. Ewing was a bit of an anomaly. Snyder will be a slower developmental project, but there are a lot of tools here to suggest he can be a productive MLB player if he continues to progress.
