It\u2019s been an offseason of shocking, sobering change for the New York Mets. But as the comforting sight of pitchers and catchers reporting to Spring Training lurks just around the corner, there\u2019s at least one thing fans will find familiar about the revamped team: the Mets\u2019 roster is, once again, overflowing with infielders.<\/p>\n
Despite parting with longtime franchise stalwarts Pete Alonso and Jeff McNeil, the Mets somehow exit the winter with a more infield-heavy group than the one they sported last season. Trade acquisition Marcus Semien is slated to start at second base, while signings Jorge Polanco and Bo Bichette will play new positions in first and third base, respectively.<\/p>\n
The new multi-year acquisitions \u2014 especially the signing of Bichette\u2014 will leave the Mets\u2019 homegrown infield trio of Brett Baty, Mark Vientos, and Ronny Mauricio scrounging for playing time once again. It\u2019s becoming a familiar pattern for all three players, who have seen their names smattered across a variety of top prospect lists, mock trades, and minor and major league lineups over the past three years. It seemed 2026 might be a year when all three got the chance to start regularly at the major league level, but now that possibility feels as distant as the 2024 team\u2019s \u201cOMG\u201d-infused energy. And as if it wasn\u2019t clear enough from the Mets\u2019 offseason thus far, their trading of Luisangel Acu\u00f1a Jr.<\/a> \u2014 a 23-year-old top prospect with six years of service time remaining \u2014 re-affirmed the motto of the offseason: no one from the 2025 Mets is a safe bet to remain in Queens.<\/p>\n So with just over two months until Opening Day, it\u2019s time to once again evaluate where each of these promising young players stand as members of the Mets\u2019 projected 2026 roster, as chips on the trade market, and as future big leaguers\u2026<\/p>\n Mark Vientos (Entering age-26 season \/ Free Agent after 2029)<\/p>\n Among the Mets\u2019 homegrown infield quartet, Mark Vientos has far and away displayed the highest upside at the major league level. In 2024, at just 24 years old, the right-handed hitter posted a .837 OPS in the regular season and a scalding .998 OPS with five homers in the postseason, positioning himself as one of the most exciting young bats in the game. But Vientos was unable to build on his stellar sophomore season, seeing his OPS drop to .702 in 2025.<\/p>\n If Vientos isn\u2019t slugging, he isn\u2019t adding much value via other facets of his game. Vientos recorded a 19th-percentile sprint speed and -7 Outs Above Average while primarily playing third base last season. The result was that he recorded -0.2 bWAR, a dismal mark bound to repeat itself if he bears a below-league-average OPS again. While there\u2019s every chance his bat bounces back \u2014 he\u2019s only 26 years old, after all \u2014 it\u2019s understandable that the Mets might be hesitant to pin their hopes on a player whose floor is below replacement level. That doesn\u2019t mean, though, that another team won\u2019t be eager to take the risk.<\/p>\n With the veteran Polanco slated for first base and the star Bichette slated for third base in the Mets\u2019 Opening Day lineup, Vientos would once again have to earn his playing time the hard way, as he did back in early 2024. It\u2019s a tough position to be in, something which Vientos has acknowledged<\/a> before by calling it \u201cextremely difficult\u201d to improve in a part-time role. Rather than having him languish on their bench, the Mets might be more inclined to trade Vientos to an organization willing to let him play every day. This would afford Vientos the best shot to re-capture his lightning in a bottle success, award another team a hungry and talented young player with four years of team control remaining, and allow the Mets to negotiate the potential acquisition of a starting pitcher. But even if Vientos remains, he can still use that hunger to try and earn himself everyday playing time somehow. He\u2019s done it before. Perhaps he can do it again.<\/p>\n Brett Baty (Entering age-26 season \/ Free Agent after 2029)<\/p>\n A first-round draft pick and top prospect, Brett Baty did not have the sizzling start to his career that some anticipated, but he\u2019s improved markedly with each season spent in the majors. In 2023, he recorded -0.7 bWAR with a 66 OPS+ in 108 games. Over 50 games in 2024, his OPS+ rose to 81. In 2025, Baty finally earned everyday playing time, putting up a 111 OPS+ fueled by hot streaks in May and August. Baty saw his time split between third base and second base, recording 2 OAA at third and -1 OAA at second.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to envision Baty being a more reliable bat in the lineup than Bichette, who has posted an OPS+ of 120 or higher in six of his seven big-league seasons. But if Baty\u2019s pattern of offensive improvement continues and he rakes off the bench, there are still a few potential paths to increased playing time. One path is if Bichette\u2019s third base defense is worse than or comparable to his middle infield defense, which could compel the Mets to move him to DH and give Baty starts at third. A second path is if Semien repeats his early-season struggles from 2025. The second baseman had an OPS of just .507 through his first 50 games last season, and while Semien still provides high-end defensive value, the Mets may not have as much patience for those offensive struggles given their plethora of infield options. In that case, Baty would be a candidate to get starts (or at least pinch-hit opportunities) in Semien\u2019s place.<\/p>\n A third path is if Baty sees time in left field, something which Jon Heyman recently reported<\/a> that the Mets are envisioning, and which David Stearns alluded to<\/a> as a possibility way back in December 2024. Baty has played exactly one major league inning at left field, but he played 29 games there in the minor leagues. Will Sammon also reported<\/a> on Sunday that \u201cthe Mets want Brett Baty to perform the utility role that they formerly envisioned for Jeff McNeil,\u201d including potentially seeing time at first base. Like Vientos, Baty\u2019s four years of team control and proven upside make him an attractive trade candidate; but the fact that Baty isn\u2019t a fielding liability and that the organization see him as a versatile defensive option means he has a higher chance of providing meaningful value to the 2026 Mets.<\/p>\n Ronny Mauricio (Entering age-25 season \/ Free Agent after 2029)<\/p>\n Ronny Mauricio currently holds an 84 OPS+ over 292 big league plate appearances, but most Mets fans will tell you that number doesn\u2019t reflect his offensive potential. One reason is because, in contrast with the two players we\u2019ve discussed thus far, Mauricio has never really gotten an earnest shot to be an everyday player at the major league level. After a cup of coffee in September 2023, Mauricio missed all of 2024 and the start of 2025 with a right knee injury. While Mauricio then spent the majority of the 2025 season in the majors, he received sporadic playing time, only starting in 43 games over four months. It\u2019s understandably difficult for a 24-year-old to adjust to major league pitching while only getting a handful of at-bats per week, and so the Mets are yet to see exactly what Mauricio would be capable of if given consistent playing time.<\/p>\n Another reason to believe in Mauricio\u2019s potential is that when he hits the ball, he hits it hard. His first major league hit was a double off Logan Gilbert which registered a 117.3-mph exit velocity, making Mauricio one of only 10 players to hit a ball that hard during the 2023 season. In 2025, Mauricio recorded an average exit velocity of 91.2 mph, which ranked sixth among Mets with 100 plate appearances. Mauricio has also delivered some fairly clutch moments. Of the six homers he hit in 2025, five put the Mets ahead or tied the game, and four of those five came in the sixth inning or later.<\/p>\n But despite his promise, Mauricio has nonetheless struggled to make contact and lay off pitches outside the zone, with a 33.9 Whiff% and 39.9 Chase% last season. It\u2019s difficult to imagine those numbers would keep up if Mauricio was given more consistent playing time, but it\u2019s also difficult to imagine Mauricio getting the opportunity to improve meaningfully on the 2026 Mets\u2019 roster. Second base and third base belong to Semien and Bichette, and if one needs a day off or misses time due to injury, Baty \u2014 not Mauricio \u2014 would surely be the next man up. Mauricio\u2019s ceiling may very well be the highest of all four of the Mets\u2019 infield trade candidates, but Mauricio\u2019s floor is also the biggest unknown of the bunch. As Amazin\u2019 Avenue\u2019s Lukas Vlahos wrote in Mauricio\u2019s season review<\/a>, \u201cIt is of course easy to dream on the lightning quick bat and gargantuan home runs he pops off every once in a while, but we\u2019ve been talking for a half-decade about the same problems here with little improvement.\u201d A team with belief in Mauricio\u2019s bat and a middle-infield spot open might be a better home for the young slugger than Queens in the coming seasons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been an offseason of shocking, sobering change for the New York Mets. 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