SEATTLE — The Mets will hope Colin Houck and Brandon Sproat were worth the waits.
The Mets — whose first pick was pushed out of the first round because of last year’s high payroll — selected Houck, a high school infielder, at No. 32 overall at the First-Year Player Draft at T-Mobile Park on Sunday.
They followed it up by grabbing Sproat, a University of Florida pitcher whom they failed to sign last year.
First came Houck, a 6-foot-2 shortstop from Parkview High School in Georgia.
The Mets plucked from Braves territory in selecting the 18-year-old, who will have to be cajoled out of a commitment to Mississippi State — the same school Mets 2022 first-round pick Jett Williams bypassed when he turned pro.
Houck was rated the 12th-best prospect overall by MLB Pipeline after he hit .487 with eight home runs and 16 stolen bases in his senior season.
Houck was Gatorade’s Georgia Player of the Year in baseball but impressed in football, too.
The right-handed hitter was a righty quarterback who became a three-star recruit as a signal-caller and passed for 2,189 yards and 24 touchdowns as a senior.
Houck is an athlete who is well-regarded particularly for a powerful swing and is coming out of a high school that has seen some.
Braves first baseman Matt Olson is a Parkview alum.
In the second round, the Mets picked Sproat for a second time.
Last year, they selected the righty in the third round but did not come to an agreement for a contract.
Sproat returned to Florida and pitched to a 4.66 ERA with 134 strikeouts in 106 ⅓ innings.
The Mets were one of two teams (with the Dodgers) that did not have a true first-round selection this year.
Both clubs’ first picks moved back 10 spots because they went over the luxury-tax threshold by more than $40 million last season.
Houck will join a system that is deep with shortstops, who are particularly valuable because they typically can make transitions to other positions.
Francisco Lindor is entrenched as the big-league shortstop, while No. 2 prospect Ronny Mauricio has begun playing second base and left field at Triple-A Syracuse.
Williams, the Mets’ No. 3 prospect and a first-round pick last year, has predominantly played shortstop at Class-A St. Lucie.
In choosing Houck, the Mets showed a further propensity for high-school position players.
They had selected high-school hitters — Jarred Kelenic (2018), Brett Baty (2019), Pete Crow-Armstrong (2020) and Jett Williams (2022) — with four of their past six first-round picks.
The exceptions were catcher Kevin Parada, from Georgia Tech, last year, and Vanderbilt pitcher Kumar Rocker, whom they did not sign in 2021.
The Mets did not select for a first time until 32nd, but they have seven picks within the first 135 selections.
They accumulated three compensation picks from losing Sproat last year and Jacob deGrom and Chris Bassitt (who were given a qualifying offer last year and signed elsewhere in free agency) last offseason.