Ryan Clifford could be the Mets' next hard-hitting first baseman

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — One night near the end of a weird, long, successful 2023 season, Ryan Clifford was on a plane with the rest of the High-A Brooklyn Cyclones, flying back to New York City after a couple of weeks in the Carolinas.

When he looked out the window during the descent, he saw the promised land in all its glory, surrounded by parking lots and empty plots: Citi Field.

“We flew right over and saw it,” Clifford said. “That’s where we all want to be one day.”

In this new Mets world with a bona fide focus on the farm system, per the oft-stated desire of owner Steve Cohen, Clifford is another prospect name to watch. He is another prize of the Mets’ aces-included trade-deadline selloff last summer, one of two players acquired from the Astros for Justin Verlander.

The Mets don’t necessarily need a first baseman of the future. Pete Alonso may well decide in free agency he and the Mets are meant to be.

But — but — if the Mets find themselves in need at that position in 2025 and beyond, Clifford looms as a possibility.

Clifford, 20, has about as much raw power as anybody in the Mets’ system. He has played leftfield, rightfield and first base and is “pretty dang good” at that last position, according to director of player development Andrew Christie. He has the arm to stick in right, too, Christie said.

The defensive eventualities are secondary, however. His fielding is not what makes him fun.

“The skills we really acquired Cliff for were his really high-quality swing decisions, the ability to hit the ball in the air and hit it really, really hard,” Christie said. “And he’s still doing all those.”

Hitting the ball really, really hard is Clifford’s forte.

Consider: Prior to getting traded last year, he had a .271/.356/.547 slash line with Houston’s High-A club in his first full pro season after getting drafted out of high school. He smacked 16 homers in 58 games — a 45-homer pace over a 162-game season.

Those numbers plummeted post-trade to .188/.307/.376, but the Mets have reasons to not put a lot of stock in that. In addition to dealing with normal in-season fluctuations and a midseason change in organization, which can be difficult for any player, Clifford also had to contend with the elements at Brooklyn’s ballpark, which are known to be harsh for lefthanded hitters.

Nestled between Surf Avenue and the beach in Coney Island, Maimonides Park has some of the best views of any stadium in the country. But the wind blows off the Atlantic Ocean and in from rightfield, which makes homer hitting hard, especially for lefties pulling the ball.

In a road game, Clifford hammered a certain moonshot way beyond the rightfield wall, Christie said. When he returned to Brooklyn and hit a ball at almost the same velocity and almost the same angle, it went off the wall.

“I’m not going to go make excuses, but it’s an intriguing park for sure,” said Clifford, listed at 6-3 and 200 pounds. “There’s a lot of stuff going on. It’s definitely an interesting park. It is what it is.”

The Mets haven’t decided yet if Clifford’s 2024 will begin with Brooklyn or Double-A Binghamton.

A quick climber so far, Clifford was the Astros’ 11th-round pick in 2022, a stage of the draft that belied his talent. Houston lured him away from his commitment to Vanderbilt with a signing bonus of $1.26 million, which is more in line with what a late second-rounder would get.

Clifford stayed with the Astros for about a year, until they needed to dip into their farm system to  bring Verlander back. The Mets netted Clifford and outfielder Drew Gilbert, the Astros' first-round choice in the same draft.

Being traded for a virtual lock of a Hall of Famer was “a cool experience,” Clifford said.

“[A possible trade] was definitely not something that had been told to me, but through my own research and understanding of how this stuff works, I knew that Verlander wanted to go back to Houston,” Clifford said. “If he was to get traded, it was probably going to be Houston. And there’s a good possibility that I was part of that. And it went through.”

Now Clifford, Gilbert and others are central to a Mets player-development setup trending in the right direction. He said he has been working “a lot” at first base in spring training, with a particular focus on footwork.

That taste of the Big Apple via a few weeks in Brooklyn? That overhead glimpse of Citi Field? It might be just the start.

“It’s cool to be a part of a system that they’re kind of building,” Clifford said. “It’s cool to be a part of what hopefully in the future ends up being a really good farm system that turns into a lot of great major-leaguers.”

By Tim Healey

timothy.healey@newsday.com@timbhealey

Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.