Mark Vientos, Photos by Ed Delany of MMN
In many ways, the most important development over the course of the 2022 season for the Syracuse Mets is the defensive development of Mark Vientos. In many ways, it is Vientos’ defense that is holding him back.
Throughout his career, we have seen Vientos continue to make adjustments and mash at the plate. We’ve seen him significantly improve at pitch recognition, and he is driving the ball more. We’ve also seen him cut down on his ground balls allowing his power to truly shine. With the progress he’s made, we saw him post a 144 wRC+ in Double-A followed by a 159 in Triple-A last season.
Unfortunately, Vientos’ defense has not progressed the way his offense has. In fact, after he was drafted as a shortstop out of high school, he was quickly moved to third base. Vientos’ struggles at the position coupled with the rise of Brett Baty, the Mets gave Vientos looks at first and left field last season.
The fact of the matter is there may be a path to the majors in 2022 for Vientos if he improves his third base defense. The bat is arguably Major League ready. His glove just needs to get there. In the season opener for Syracuse, we saw some real defensive promise from Vientos.
In the first, Thomas Szapucki was laboring, and it appeared Ryan LaMarre hit what appeared to be a single to continue the inning. Vientos would make a diving stop in the hole. The throw would be off-line necessitating Cody Bohanek to make a stretch to secure the final out of that inning.
Mark Vientos is playing 3rd base for Syracuse tonight and made this diving stop. The throw was a bit off line, but Cody Bohanek made a great play to keep his foot on the bag pic.twitter.com/3jcNZeZV8y
— Joe DeMayo (@PSLToFlushing) April 5, 2022
In the second, Vientos charged an Estevan Florial bouncer in the hole and made a strong throw to first to end the inning. It should be noted that MLB Pipeline has graded Florial as having 60 speed on the 20/80 scouting scale which indicates this play more difficult than at first glance. It also highlights just how strong Vientos’ arm is.
Mark Vientos has made two nice plays at third in two innings tonight. He highlights an otherwise bare Syracuse roster prospect-wise. #Mets pic.twitter.com/Hmr2pxF1i8
— Jacob Resnick (@Jacob_Resnick) April 5, 2022
As noted by MMN‘s Michael Mayer, Vientos made these impressive plays, but he would also make some of the more routine plays more difficult than they needed to be. Overall, Vientos handled all of his chances, did not make an error, and he made some impressive plays in the field. All told, this was a good start to the season defensively for Vientos, and it shows some promise for him in a season where he needs to make these defensive improvements to force his way to the majors.
