Mets and Yankees select Arkansas pitchers in first round of MLB Draft

The Mets went for Carson Wiggins with their first-round pick in the MLB Draft. The Yankees went for Hunter Dietz with their first-round pick. There are three ties that bind them: the University of Arkansas, pitching and elbow trouble in their past.

But both are healthy again and offer a lot of promise. And so the local teams took the two Razorbacks on Saturday.

“That is very fun for me,” Wiggins said over Zoom about the two of them being drafted by the New York teams. “I’m excited to see him out there for sure.”

Wiggins came via the 27th overall selection. The 6-5, 215-pound righty brings only 14 innings of college experience after not pitching this past season as a sophomore. He had internal brace surgery on his right elbow in May 2025.

His final college numbers included a 1-1 record with a 3.21 ERA and 20 strikeouts in 14 relief appearances as a freshman before he was injured. He’s done with his rehab now, but MLB Pipeline had him ranked 88th on the list of draft prospects.

“I’m obviously very thankful,” Wiggins said. “Did not see this coming at all. I think the Mets taking a chance on me is very surreal to me. I’ve wanted this since I was a little kid.”

The prime attraction now that he’s healthy again? He throws very hard.

He reached 102 mph twice as a freshman and averaged 98.7 with his fastball. He said his “velocity is back up to where it should be.”

He also throws a slider, curve and change. Wiggins, whose brother Jaxon is in the Cubs’ system after pitching for Arkansas, showed he was good to go at the MLB Draft Combine last month in Phoenix.

“Tremendous athlete, tremendous size, and we’re really excited about the repertoire he’s working with,” said Kris Gross, the Mets’ vice president of amateur scouting and international scouting. “He’ll flirt with triple digits. He has two high-spin breaking balls. The change has really come along during the rehab.

“We think he’s going to be a really damn good pitcher .  .  . We see this guy as a starter, a frontline-type starter.”

Dietz came via the 35th overall selection. MLB Pipeline had him ranked 17th.

The 6-6, 235-pound lefty had 1 2⁄3 innings to show for his first two seasons with the Razorbacks. He needed surgery for a stress fracture in his left elbow in the fall of 2023 and then had more problems with it.

He was healthy and excelled this past season as a redshirt sophomore, going 7-4 with a 3.57 ERA and a team-high 131 strikeouts in 16 starts and 85 2⁄3 innings.

He has sat mostly at 94 to 96 mph and touched 98 with his fastball, and he owns an especially effective slider and cutter. He was the first college lefty to be drafted.

“Hunter is right up our alley,” said Damon Oppenheimer, the Yankees’ vice president of domestic amateur scouting. “He has a big lefthanded arm with a deluxe fastball and a breaking ball that can be a wipeout pitch.”

The Yankees chose another lefty, Sean Duncan, in the second round (63rd overall). The 6-3 alum of Terry Fox Secondary School in British Columbia has a good changeup in a three-pitch mix, but he had Tommy John surgery last month.

“We love Sean,” Oppenheimer said. “We think he has a huge ceiling. He throws strikes and is ultracompetitive with a bit of a Cole Hamels feel to us.”

Catcher/outfielder Brendan Brock, who posted 13 homers and 28 steals for national champion Oklahoma, was the Yankees’ choice at No. 99 in the third round. They liked his speed, power and defensive ability.

Cal State Fullerton outfielder Paul Gutierrez-Contreras, who batted .346 and was chosen at pick No. 127 in the fourth round, was the Yankees’ final Day 1 selection in the 20-round draft in Philadelphia. “He has serious righthanded power and his bat-to-ball skills are really good,” Oppenheimer said.

The Mets didn’t have a second-round pick. They were surprised to see Aiden Robbins available in the third round at pick No. 92 — MLB Pipeline had him ranked 29th — and were happy to take him. The righthanded-hitting outfielder batted .422 for Seton Hall in 2025, then hit .333 with 24 homers this past season after transferring to Texas.

The Mets finished the day by drafting Shane Sdao. The Texas A&M lefty had Tommy John surgery in the fall of 2024 and missed the 2025 season. He went 4-4 with 83 strikeouts in 71 2⁄3 innings spread over 13 starts and four relief outings in 2026.

The Mets like him as a starter. “The strikes come easy for him,” Gross said.

Leading into the draft, it was a question of who would go first overall, UCLA shortstop Roch Cholowsky or Grady Emerson, a shortstop from Fort Worth Christian School in Texas.

The answer became Cholowsky first to the White Sox and Emerson second to the Rays.

“I fell in love with Chicago when I went out there a couple of months back,” Cholowsky said on NBC, which carried the first 10 picks. “And I’m ready to get to work.”