PORT ST. LUCIE — This 2026 season will be a pivotal one for Mets infielder Ronny Mauricio. No longer a top prospect, he has only one minor league option year left. Two years after a devastating knee injury that cost him significant development time, Mauricio, entering his age-25 season has to show more than just potential — he has to show that he can live up to it.
Mauricio will compete with Vidal Brujan, Grae Kessinger and Jackson Cluff for the Mets’ utility infielder role this spring. With Francisco Lindor sidelined for six weeks to recover from hamate surgery, Mauricio will see more time at shortstop this spring than usual.
It’s his natural position, the position the Mets signed him to play as a 16-year-old, well before Lindor was ever on their radar. But Mauricio has played very little of the position since about the middle of 2023, a few months before he tore his right ACL while playing winter ball.
The Mets have to see if he’s still mobile enough to field the position at a high level.
“He hasn’t played it very much, and we’re going to have to get him ready, but it’s not something you forget,” manager Carlos Mendoza said this week at Clover Park. “As long as he’s healthy — which he is — I don’t think it’s going to be an issue.”
Mauricio doesn’t see it as an issue either. It was the very first position he played on a baseball field, and the Mets were slow to move him off it in 2023. When they did, they moved him to second base where he was still blocked at the big-league level. Late in the season, the Mets moved him to third base, then had him play third during his September call-up.
The plan was to transition him to third on a more full-time basis, but a few months later came the knee injury. Surgeries and setbacks in his recovery cost him the entire 2024 season, and he still wasn’t even cleared to participate in full during last spring’s camp. He didn’t even get into a Grapefruit League game last year.
“I know I haven’t played a lot of games at shortstop since my surgery, but I’m feeling great,” he told the Daily News. “I’m healthy and my knee feels great.”
He’s looking forward to playing shortstop again, even if it’s only in Grapefruit League games.
“What I love is that every play that’s made, the shortstop has to be there,” he said. “That’s what I like, I like to be in games and I like to be everywhere.”
Mauricio played in 61 Major League games for the Mets last season, hitting .226 with a .663 OPS, hitting six home runs and stealing four bases. A strong, athletic infielder, the 6-foot-4 switch-hitter possesses strong bat speed and hits the ball hard — when he hits it. Plate discipline was an issue in the minor leagues, and while he was able to draw a few more walks than expected last season, he still chased too many pitches outside of the zone. He had an especially hard time hitting breaking balls.
He was streaky, and it didn’t help that the Mets had too many young infielders and not enough places to play them. By the time the end of the season came around, Mauricio was barely playing. He had only 13 at-bats in nine September games, and when the Mets needed him in the final series of the year, he was cold off the bench.
Mauricio returned to Tigres del Licey over the offseason, the winter league team in his native Dominican Republic he has played for since he was 19. Unlike in 2023, the Mets encouraged him to play in the winter league to make up for some of the time lost. The focus in his offseason work was on consistency. He worked on being able to repeat the motion of his swing and strengthen his defensive fundamentals.
In between workouts, he spent time with his 7-year-old son Liam, who is also playing baseball. Liam has gravitated toward catching more than playing in the infield, so Mauricio is hoping to bring Liam to New York during the season to spend time around Mets catchers Francisco Alvarez, Luis Torrens and Hayden Senger.
“We’ve got a lot of good ones in here he can learn from,” he said.
If Mauricio is feeling any pressure at the start of spring training, he’s not showing it. He might be one of the happiest players in the clubhouse no matter what time of year it is. This spring, he’s extra excited to finally return to normalcy and be with the team instead of rehabbing on his own.
“The good thing is, he’s finally fully healthy,” Mendoza said. “He’s not on a running progression, he’s not doing backfield activity. He’s a full player for us.”