NEW YORK — Amid a team-wide energy outage and regardless of organizational reservations, the Mets on Wednesday relented to make a transfer they’ve resisted for a number of weeks. The staff referred to as up nook infielder Mark Vientos, hoping he can present an influence spark for his or her flagging lineup. Infielder Luis Guillorme was optioned to Triple-A Syracuse in a corresponding transfer.
Vientos, the membership’s seventh-ranked prospect based on MLB Pipeline, hit his thirteenth house run in 38 video games on Tuesday night time for Syracuse and is slashing .333/.416/.688 at that stage. He briefly made his Major League debut late final summer season, batting .167 with one homer in 16 video games. One of the youngest members of his 2017 Draft class, the previous second-round decide has hit 90 profession homers since turning professional.
If Vientos can come anyplace near his peak manufacturing with the Mets, he may do wonders for an offense that lately snapped a streak of 56 consecutive innings with no homer on Tuesday.
But Mets officers have lengthy been skeptical of Vientos, largely due to his swing-and-miss propensities and defensive shortcomings. He has addressed the previous concern by reducing his strikeout fee from 30.8% via April 16 to fifteen.8% since that point.
The latter concern stays an issue. Although Vientos has improved defensively over the previous yr, the Mets have Brett Baty and Pete Alonso entrenched on the corner-infield positions. It stays to be seen if the Mets will make Vientos their on a regular basis designated hitter or use him solely sparingly off the bench. Vientos, a right-handed hitter, may discover it tough to attract DH reps over lefty Daniel Vogelbach, despite the fact that Vogelbach has simply two house runs and a .369 slugging proportion this season. The Mets additionally acquired Tommy Pham simply 4 months in the past to function the right-handed half of that platoon.
But maybe the Mets are lastly able to act given the inconsistencies of their offense. The name for Vientos follows related callups of Baty and Francisco Álvarez, the group’s high two prospects getting into this season. One different blue-chip prospect, shortstop Ronny Mauricio, stays at Syracuse, the place he’s batting .354/.390/.615 over 40 video games. Mauricio, a minimum of, can spend his time at Syracuse persevering with to study different defensive positions, whereas Vientos had basically nothing left to study on the stage.
The Mets will now see if he can present a spark within the Majors. With the Rays beginning left-handed Josh Fleming on Wednesday, Vientos is for certain to be within the lineup.
Guillorme hasn’t discovered a rhythm on the plate this season, with a .233 common and .590 OPS after he hit .278 with a .367 OBP in 200 video games from 2020-22.
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