Paul Articulates - The invisible man

I will begin by saying that I am a baseball fan that writes about baseball.  My experience in coaching and player evaluation ends at too low a level to consider me an “expert”.  I have studied the game for many years and see the finer points of the game, but I am not in line for a front office job just yet.

With that said, and with deference to the Mets’ front office and their strategic objectives, I have to say that I am completely confounded by what they are doing about first base this spring season.

When Jorge Polanco was acquired during the off-season, it was made clear that he was going to be option number one for first base.  Polanco has an infielder pedigree and has been a very good baseball player during his twelve year MLB career.  He is a former all-star (2019), a most-improved player award recipient (2021 Twins), and a heart and hustle award nominee much like new teammates Francisco Lindor and Marcus Semien.  

With 596 MLB innings playing middle infield positions, it is implicit that he has some quickness and glove talent.  However, he has played a total of 1/3 inning at first base in his career and spent all of the 2025 season as a designated hitter.  This is not what I consider a “plug-and-play” first baseman.

Fast forward to spring training.  My expectation was that the Mets would provide tons of coaching and former player expertise to train Polanco on the subtleties of playing first base.  Basics, fundamentals, advanced techniques, and a graduate course from Keith Hernandez seemed appropriate.  From the outside looking in we can’t see how the process is going, but we can see one very alarming indicator: Polanco has not played an inning at first base throughout the spring training season which is now ten games old.  In fact, he was not seen on a competitive ballfield until Tuesday’s game against Nicaragua, and for that game he was the DH.

Polanco was interviewed about the process he was going through and said there was more to learn than he expected but now felt “comfortable” in what he knew.  That is certainly what we wanted to hear, but he may have just been saying it because that is what we wanted to hear.  

First base is a very unique position in the infield, and it requires habitual skills that are not common to the other infield positions.  For example, an infielder’s instinct on any ball not hit directly at them is to range hard after the ball and exert whatever effort it takes to go get that ball.  However, on a ground ball between first and second, the first baseman’s habit must be to defer to the second baseman on any ball that is not easily within reach.  

Understanding what that range is to make the decision on “move right” versus “move left” takes many, many on-field reps.  I am talking about in-game reps with a second baseman that is going all-out to reach balls in the hole.  Other than one intra-squad contest, Polanco has seen none of those in-game reps.  He has not seen the errant throw from the other corner that forces some quick, instinctive footwork to avoid the runner and still get the out.  Or the leaping catch-spin-tag when you know (by experience) that you can’t keep your foot on the bag and catch the ball based upon its trajectory.

I could go on but hopefully you understand my concern by now.  A position that requires the creation of habit through many, many in-game experiences is not being manned by the guy that has been designated to play that position.  Who has been in the position?  A long list of candidates, none of which have played a significant majority of the innings available.  So number one isn’t getting any experience, and number two has not risen from the pack.

Let’s take stock of what has occurred at the position through Tuesday:

Nine players have played in the ten games through Tuesday.  Jose Rojas, with a MLB total of two games (4 innings) at first base, leads the pack with just under 27% of the innings.  Vientos, Baty, and Young represent guys with the best shot at making the team, and in total they have about a third of the innings.  The rest is spread out among players that are “just getting a look”.

There is plenty of spring to go (19 more games if you include split squads). Despite that, my opinion is that the team has not moved out of the starting gate on the truth test for their primary first base candidate with a little over half the pre-season games behind them.

Are you worried too?