The Cincinnati Reds have six or seven players who are heading to the World Baseball Classic (Irvin Machuca is a reserve pitcher on Team Mexico who will be eligible to join them in case of an injury, or after pool play). The youngest of the players, and the least experienced of them, is Ryjeteri Merite.

Back in December of 2023 he signed with the Reds. He then missed most of the 2024 season, making just three starts at the end of the year and only throwing 3.2 innings. Last season he remained healthy and made 11 starts with three relief appearances for the Dominican Summer League Reds and allowed just three earned runs in 33.1 innings while striking out 44 batters. That’s a 0.81 ERA. Hitters had a .197/.319/.265 line against him during the year with four doubles, two triples, and no home runs.

Despite the fact that he’s never pitched outside of the Dominican Summer League as a professional, the Netherlands felt like he was one of their best options to take to the World Baseball Classic. Having just turned 20 in December, Merite pitched on Tuesday in a tune up for the tournament.

The Netherlands faced off against the Baltimore Orioles in Florida and Merite got the start in the game. He would walk Taylor Ward with one out and that would cost him as three pitches later Pete Alonso took a pitch on the outside corner at the bottom of the zone the other way for a 2-run home run. He would come back to strike out both Ryan Mountcastle and Samuel Basallo to end the inning.

Mountcastle has been in the big leagues for six seasons and he’s had nearly 2700 big league plate appearances. Basallo has only played in 31 big league games, but he also debuted four days after he turned 21-years-old last August. In Triple-A last season he hit .270/.377/.589 and has been rated as a top 10 prospect in all of baseball by just about everyone. He wasn’t exactly facing Pete Alonso hitting in a lineup full of Single-A kids – he came back after giving up a homer to strike out two big leaguers.

That would be the only inning he would pitch on the day, but he’d get credited with the win as the Netherlands rallied and scored seven runs over the next two innings to put the game away.

Having spent his career in the DSL there hasn’t been a ton of reports rolling in. I did have some scouting information on him, but since he actually pitched in the game on Tuesday with Hawkeye running we can take a look at that to tell us a bit more about what he’s throwing.

The Fastball: He threw his 4-seam fastball twice. The sinker showed up 11 times and he averaged 94 MPH on it, topping out at 94.8 on the day.

The Slider: Merite threw this pitch eight times on the day, averaging 79.7 MPH with it.

There was no broadcast of the game, so we can’t look at his inning of work. But above there is some video from last summer and it doesn’t take a seasoned scout to see that breaking ball and see a good one. When you toss in the fact that he’s also a lefty who can throw 95 MPH it’s a profile you can get a little excited about.

The Netherlands will be playing in Pool D of the World Baseball Classic. That group will be in Miami. Here’s what the schedule looks like for them in pool play:

Game 1: March 6th vs Venezuela at 12pm ET on tubiGame 2: March 7th vs Nicaragua at 12pm ET on tubiGame 3: March 8th vs Dominican Republic at 12pm ET on FoxGame 4: March 10th vs Israel at 7pm ET on Fox One

You can see the career stats for Ryjeteri Merite here.