Carson Wiggins hasn't thrown a competitive pitch since 2025, and the Mets still paid him like a top-27 pick who's healthy right now. New York signed the Arkansas righty to a $3,466,500 bonus, full slot value for the 27th overall pick, closing the book on one of the stranger first-round stories of this draft cycle.
Supplemental 1st-rd pick Carson Wiggins signs w/@Mets for $3,466,500 (full slot 27 value). @RazorbackBSB RHP, best fastball in @MLBDraft (avg 99 mph, peak 102 in 2025) & wipeout upper-80s slider as well. Missed 2026 following internal brace surgery but threw at Combine.
The pull here is obvious once you look at the radar gun readings. Wiggins averaged 99 mph on his fastball as a freshman and touched 102, numbers that had scouts calling it the best fastball in the entire draft class. Pair that with a wipeout upper-80s slider that hitters went 1-for-16 against with 14 strikeouts back in 2025, and you understand why a team spends real money on a guy who spent his draft year rehabbing instead of pitching.
That rehab is the whole catch. Wiggins tore his UCL as a freshman at Arkansas and underwent an internal brace procedure, which wiped out his entire 2026 season on campus. He didn't throw for the Razorbacks at all this year, but he showed enough at the MLB Draft Combine to convince clubs the arm still works, sitting in the high-90s again in front of scouts before he'd even signed anywhere.
For the Mets, this is a straight-up projection bet. Full slot for a pitcher who's thrown 14 innings across 14 appearances in his college career isn't cheap insurance, it's a real vote of confidence in the stuff over the sample size. If the arm bounces back the way the Combine outing suggested, New York landed a potential top-of-the-rotation piece for the price of a guy who fell in the draft over health questions.
Now it's just about patience. Wiggins is expected to be shut down from live competition into next year as he continues building back up, with instructional work and a full return likely not coming until 2027. The Mets' farm system just added one of the highest-ceiling arms in the class, they just have to wait to find out if the elbow holds up.