With Justin Verlander headed back to Houston, the Mets received two of the Astros’ top three prospects in return. The first piece, Drew Gilbert, is an exciting center field prospect with high-end offensive potential who has already reached Double-A.
Despite a strong performance at a marquee baseball program (.362/.455/.673 his junior year at Tennessee), Gilbert was not widely regarded as an elite prospect. MLB Pipeline’s rankings had him at 32, while Baseball Prospectus was a bit higher at 17. Perhaps deterred by his short stature—Gilbert stands 5’7” on his best day—MLB teams felt the same way, and Gilbert stayed on the board until 28th.