Prospect Deep Dive: Jonah Tong
Fastball: 65 | Curveball: 55 | Slider: 45 | Changeup: 50 | Control: 45 | Overall: 50
Blink once — it’s two weeks into spring training.
Blink once again — it’s less than three weeks until Opening Day.
Jonah Tong doesn’t need to blink; his stuff is that eye-opening.
Jonah Tong, 21, is 6’1 180 pounds, and was born in Markham, Ontario. He’s the Mets’ 6th overall prospect, having jumped up from being ranked 10th the year prior. Interesting enough, when Tong graduated high school — he wasn’t committed to a college.
During his junior year at Bill Crothers High School in 2019, Tong’s fastball sat at 79-81mph, topping out at 82mph. His velocity was clocked at the Toronto Mets’ Scout Day, one of Canada's elite amateur baseball programs. No relation, but a funny coincidence.
Going into his senior year in August of 2020 — Tong’s fastball velocity jumped a considerable margin. At the Future Games Trials, he sat 82-84mph and topped out at 85mph. Tong graduated high school in June of 2021 while being in contact with minimal collegiate programs. After attending the NorthEast Senior Games in DuBois, Pennsylvania, Tong was sitting 88-90mph.
At the same time, Tong still wasn’t garnering much interest.
A program that had mutual interest with Tong was North Dakota State, to where he committed late in August of 2021. Given that Canada was still simultaneously under lockdowns, Tong was able to use his extra COVID year to attend Georgia Premier Academy in Bulloch County, Georgia.
Tong’s motion is eerily similar to that of Tim Lincecum.
While impressing down in Georgia, Tong received an invite to the 2022 MLB Draft League while playing for the Frederick Keys in Maryland. He had a rough go of it — pitching to a 10.80 ERA in 111.2 innings. Tong had 10 walks, while striking out 14 batters. While his numbers weren’t encouraging, it was more of a transition to pro ball than anything else.
Even with his poor performance, the Mets still took Jonah Tong in the seventh round of the 2022 June Amateur Draft that July. They signed him for full slot at $226,000, taking him away from his commitment to North Dakota State.
To begin his 2023, Tong made 8 starts across 10 appearances between the Florida Complex League at the rookie level and Low-A St. Lucie. Across 21 innings, Tong had a 6.00 ERA with a 22-38 BB/K. He ascended from Single-A St. Lucie to High-A Brooklyn after four scoreless starts.
Tong has a five pitch arsenal consisting of a fastball, cutter, 12-6 curveball, changeup, and slider. You’ll commonly hear that the advanced metrics are Tong’s impressionable trait to scouts, it’s his quick ascension that’s extremely impressive, as well.
While ascending up the ladder to Double-A Binghamton across 3 years and 113 innings, Tong compiled a 3.03 ERA, a 1.17 WHIP, and 160 strikeouts.
His 34.2% strikeout rate was the 5th best of all minor leaguers.
The Mets could have a diamond in the rough with Tong, and you could see him being a staple in the Mets’ rotation for a long, long time. He’s expected to arrive at some point in 2026.
A lot of unknowns, but building towards a potential rotation someday of:
Sandy Alcantara
Brandon Sproat
Jonathan Santucci
Christian Scott
Jonah Tong
Fun to dream. A blueprint, though.
Spring training, per usual, has been interesting for the Mets.
So far, the utility role is still up for grabs. With Nick Madrigal out for the season, the conversation has pivoted to Brett Baty, Luisangel Acuña, Donovan Walton, and Luis De Los Santos.
As with anything — especially spring training — it’s always subject to change.
Will have a spring training summary piece going more in depth before Opening Day as the spring season concludes.
Scouting Report, Jonah Tong:
“Standing at 6-foot-1, Tong can look like the second coming of Tim Lincecum with his deceptive over-the-top delivery and good extension. His fastball only shows average velocity in the 91-94 mph range, but it plays well above that with elite induced vertical break (averaging above 20 inches in front of Statcast cameras in the FSL). He plays off that high pitch with a 74-76 mph curveball that he can drop in (with above 65 inches of vertical drop) for early strikes or tunnel off the heater for a K. He leaned on his 82-84 mph cut slider early in 2024 as he was looking to hone the pitch, but a 84-86 mph changeup (thrown with a Vulcan grip) was better at generating whiffs as a rare armside offering for him.”
“Tong’s walk rate crept up as he went level to level and rounded out at 10 percent. There is some concern that more advanced batters can lay off his north-south approach. But for now, Tong has the momentum and interesting profile of a pitcher who could climb into an MLB rotation quickly, especially if the strikeouts keep coming.”