Every draft class has a guy who looks more like a lottery ticket than a finished product, and for the Mets in 2026 that's Luke McNeillie. The Florida right-hander went in the fifth round, 152nd overall, and instead of taking the assigned slot money, New York went above it to lock him up.
5th-rder Luke McNeillie signs with @Mets for $500k (slot 152 value = $472,500). @GatorsBB RHP, fastball to 99 mph, upper-80s slider, reliever in college with a lot of starter traits. @MLBDraft
According to Callis, the deal came in at $500,000, roughly $27,500 above the $472,500 slot value attached to pick No. 152. That's not franchise-altering money, but it's a real vote of confidence for a college reliever who wasn't exactly a household name entering the summer.
McNeillie spent all three seasons at Florida working almost exclusively out of the bullpen, which is a little unusual given what's in the tank. Scouts have flagged him as a reliever with starter traits — the kind of prospect teams like to get their hands on early so they can stretch him out and see what happens when he's throwing 90 pitches instead of 15.
The track record is a mixed bag on paper. McNeillie posted a career-low 3.97 ERA in 2026 with a 3-0 record and a save, striking out 48 in 34 innings, but his three-year numbers at Gainesville sit at a bloated 5.24 ERA with 163 strikeouts against 62 walks. Command has been the swing factor scouts keep pointing to, and it's the reason a guy sitting near triple digits fell to the fifth round instead of going earlier.
That's exactly the profile a $500,000 overslot deal is designed for. The Mets aren't paying for a finished pitcher, they're paying to buy out any leverage McNeillie had to go back to school and try to raise his stock, and to fund an above-slot bonus by shaving money elsewhere in the class. If player development can tighten up the strike-zone command, a fastball that touches 99 with a real slider is the kind of raw material that turns into a bullpen weapon fast — or, if things really click, a back-end starter nobody was talking about on draft day.