Why David Stearns won’t say Mark Vientos is Mets’ long-term answer at third base
By Dan Martin,
2024-08-17
Mark Vientos continues to impress with his bat — his future as a third baseman remains unclear.
Back hitting second in the lineup a day after homering twice from the spot, Vientos has proved himself to be more than capable offensively, but when asked about the team’s “long-term” situation at third base, president of baseball operations David Stearns wasn’t ready to anoint Vientos for the permanent spot.
“Mark has done a very nice job solidifying himself as a major league player,” Stearns said Friday in regard to third base beyond this season. “He’s improved defensively to the point we’re running him out there regularly at third base. He deserves a lot of credit for that. For now, I’m focused on this year. In the offseason, we’ll evaluate future years.”
After taking over for Brett Baty at third in mid-May, Vientos has been as productive as anyone in the lineup.
He leads the team in OPS and OPS-plus and Carlos Mendoza has been impressed enough to move him to the top part of the lineup the past two games after hitting Vientos fifth, sixth and seventh for much of the season.
“What has continued to be great to see from Mark is the adjustments he’s able to make through the season on both sides of the ball,” Stearns said. “He went to Triple-A with an emphasis on defense and now he understands how major league pitchers attack him. Mark is still a very young player. He’s not going to be perfect. We don’t expect him to be perfect.”
To that end, while Vientos has been serviceable at third base, the advanced metrics still aren’t good.
According to Fangraphs, of the 20 players that have played at least 550 innings at third base this season, no one has a worse defensive runs saved rating than Vientos’ minus-6 and Statcast has him 20th out of 24 ranked third basemen in terms of Fielding Runs Value.
One NL scout who has watched Vientos at third this year and last season said, “He’s made some strides there and his offense makes up for some of the deficiencies, but there are definitely concerns. He just doesn’t move well.”
Get updates delivered to you daily. Free and customizable.
It’s essential to note our commitment to transparency:
Our Terms of Use acknowledge that our services may not always be error-free, and our Community Standards emphasize our discretion in enforcing policies. As a platform hosting over 100,000 pieces of content published daily, we cannot pre-vet content, but we strive to foster a dynamic environment for free expression and robust discourse through safety guardrails of human and AI moderation.
Comments / 0