Mets' Mark Vientos has plenty of power. Will he get the chance to show it?
Mets’ Mark Vientos, rounding bases after hitting a home run March 1, has plenty of power but says he feels as if he always has to prove himself ‘’times two.’’ Credit: AP/Jeff Roberson
JUPITER, Fla. — Mark Vientos crushed a 411-foot bomb in the eighth inning of the Mets’ spring training game on Wednesday and then dropped a mini-bomb in his postgame interview session.
“I walk around here with a chip on my shoulder,” Vientos said. “I feel like I’ve always got to prove [myself] times two and I feel like I’ve been doing it. Just want to keep it up and keep proving myself, and it’s not going to stop.”
Why does he feel that way?
“I just feel like that’s just the narrative for me since I’ve been playing this game from a young age,” Vientos said.
Vientos, 24, was a second-round pick by the Mets in 2017 at age 17. He has always been a good power prospect, and he reached the majors for 16 games in 2022 and another 65 in 2023.
There have been questions about Vientos’ defensive position, which is why in the minors he started as a 6-4 shortstop, was quickly moved to third base, then was tried in the corner outfield positions and now is a corner infielder/designated hitter.
Vientos hit 25 homers in the minors in 2021, had 24 in 2022 and was in the middle of a prodigious power surge (13 home runs in 38 Triple-A games) when the Mets called him up on May 17, 2023.
Vientos homered in his 2023 big-league debut, a 414-foot two-run blast in the seventh inning of what might have been the Mets’ most exciting game of a disappointing season.
The Mets went into the bottom of the ninth trailing Tampa Bay 5-2. Francisco Alvarez tied it with a three-run homer. Tampa Bay took a 7-5 lead in the 10th, but Pete Alonso hit a walk-off three-run homer to give the Mets a thrilling 8-7 victory.
Hope sprung for a day at Citi Field, especially with the big blasts from homegrown rookies Alvarez and Vientos.
The next day, Vientos was not in manager Buck Showalter’s lineup; Daniel Vogelbach and Eduardo Escobar were.
Thus began a season-long dance by Showalter of not exactly giving Vientos a real chance to show he belonged.
The Mets had 118 games left when Vientos made his debut. He started 60 of them, and he finished with a .211 batting average, nine home runs and a .620 OPS.
Vientos was not great. He didn’t really get a chance to be great, though.
The good news for Vientos — and this is not him saying it — is that the Mets have a totally new regime in 2024. David Stearns has replaced Billy Eppler as the chief decision-maker. Carlos Mendoza has replaced Showalter as manager.
Asked if he feels as if he is getting a fresh start with the new braintrust, Vientos said: “I’m not saying it’s the same — obviously it’s a different manager and front office — but I feel like I take it the same way. I go about my work and stay focused on what I need to focus on. I don’t really focus on outside things like that.”
Vientos said his first conversations with Stearns and Mendoza were mostly introductory.
“They said they’d heard good things,” he said. “I said the same thing.”
Vientos is batting .206 with three home runs in spring training. The homers have come in his last eight games. He is battling Brett Baty for the third-base job and perhaps Ji Man Choi and Luke Voit and whatever regular Mendoza wants to give a partial day off for the DH job.
Does he see a path to regular at-bats?
“I feel like, yeah,” he said. “I’m not sure because a week from now, you don’t know what’s going to happen. Two days from now, you don’t know what’s going to happen. But as of right now, yeah.”
Notes & quotes: Jose Butto (0.90 ERA in four appearances) threw four shutout innings in the Mets’ scoreless tie with St. Louis . . . Baty, who was scratched from Wednesday’s game with minor back tightness, went 1-for-3 and made two excellent plays at third base, one diving to his right and one leaping . . . Edwin Diaz threw a live batting practice session and then left for New York to be with his wife, who was due to give birth . . . Jeff McNeil (biceps soreness) might make his exhibition debut on Sunday or Tuesday, Mendoza said. The Mets are off Monday.
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
