Mark Vientos has once again gotten an opportunity to play for the big league team after many returns back to AAA. He always seems to get the wrong end of the deal, and one could argue that when he does get called up he has done well with the opportunities. The problem is that it never sticks.
Initially the problem was that he was part of a group of talented prospects “the baby Mets” that all became “ready” at around the same time. Mark was just the last of the bunch and because others were up and the Mets were not committed to fielding a team with too many rookies all at once, Mark stayed down while Francisco Alvarez, Brett Baty, and Ronny Mauricio got their shots.
Then when Mark finally came up, he was targeted for a DH role, but there were already veterans struggling to keep their jobs in that role (Ruf and Vogelbach) and either Buck Showalter or Billy Eppler would not allow him to get consistent time. He came up and went down a few times, never with a realistic shot.
2024 rolled around and finally all those veteran DHs were out of the way, but now Mark was competing for the third base job with Baty. Brett won out, Mark was likely going to be the DH, but then JD Martinez became available in the overstock section of MLB_free_agents.com and Mark was back down to AAA again.
Opportunity came knocking again with Baty still struggling to put weeks of consistent at-bats together, so Mark is up again. Mark is determined to convince the front office that he deserves to be on the team with a full time role, so he has slashed .340/.386/.642 as of Saturday night. Wow! That is an OPS over 1.0. Granted, this is a small sample (16 games, 53 AB) but it is a pretty impressive statement that he can hit major league pitching.
Will the opportunity stick? I don’t know. Vientos needs to keep hitting to take advantage because his defense at first base is average at best and his defense at third base is worse than that. With the very real possibility that Martinez will be gone by the trade deadline as well as some other vets, maybe he does have a shot.
What do you think?
He will start at 3b until JD gets traded and then he will be the DH. If Pete also gets traded then I think he will see time at 1b also, but his bat will be in the line up almost every day, at least this year. If he struggles the rest of the year then maybe the Mets go in a different direction in 2025. Also, when JD and/or Pete get traded, I think Baty will be back up to play 3rd every day, his last chance to sink or swim, and, again, if he fails, they will also look for another answer in 2025.
ReplyDeleteI still see Mark as next year's full-time first baseman
ReplyDeleteBaty could be granted one more shot at third or Mauricio will be playing these
Baty definitely has an uphill battle to regain 3rd base. He has to hit and he has to hit soon. Pressure is on to perform
ReplyDelete2 homers last night
DeleteVientos has the biggest blessing he could have hoped for….a hot start. Let’s see how he does from here. Let’s see how he fields from here. I’d take a guy who hits .250, hammers 35 homers, and provides passable defense.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I always do, in considering Baty’s 2 AAA HRs yesterday, is to see who they were hit off of, one guys ERA is 6.75, the other’s in 9.35, proving he can hit batting practice pitching.
Mauricio will need to (gasp!) play winter ball to get back in the swing. Unless he returns and plays a lot in September.
ReplyDeleteWell we do have the gut wrenching defeats down pat now we have to get the late game wins down pat but no chance w/o a BP. Vientos is making his Mark now he just needs to keep it up.
ReplyDeleteGary, forget late wins. This team specializes in “too late” wins.
ReplyDeleteWell said, Tom. There is a whole article there on "too late" wins.
ReplyDelete