2021 Mets Report Card: Luis Guillorme, INF

Grade: C

2021 Review

Heading into the 2021 season Luis Guillorme was set to be a solid bench player for the Mets with the flexibility to play multiple infield positions as well as providing an improving bat. There was even some talk of him potentially being able to snatch a full time spot at third base in a competition with the free agent signing Johnathan Villar, but ultimately most felt that at worst Luis would be able to split solid time with Villar at the spot.

In April Luis started off doing exactly what Met fans had hoped as he got off to a great start with his bat. A .333 batting average for the month as well as his great defense had Guillorme in position to get the most playing time he’d seen in his career. Unfortunately what followed was a rough oblique strain at the end of the month that sat Luis down for six weeks.

Over the course of those six weeks Luis’s hot start was forgotten though as Villar himself got off to a good start and earned himself the starting job for the rest of the season with his overall dependency. This put Guillorme back on the bench as another solid bench option.

Shortly after his return Luis was thrown back into a starting position as Villar picked up an injury but struggled to regain that early season magic with his bat that had fans and the team themselves excited. In June Guillorme had a .671 OPS, a stark decrease from the .812 he had in April. In July though it appeared that he had found his footing after hitting .319 for the month with an OPS of .812. Overall the month of July was perhaps his best of the season as he had a larger sample size to base his success off of.

Of course though just like in the month of April after his hot start, July would also bring an injury at the end of it that would cost Guillorme a large amount of time. He’d miss all of August with a hamstring strain and by the time he was back in September the Mets playoff hopes had begun to severely fade.

September would see Luis have eleven at-bats and zero hits and saw his season batting average drop from a ,291 to a .268. Two rather irrelevant games in October didn’t bring much either but did see Guillorme at least pick up his first hit in 66 days.

2022 Outlook

Injuries came at the worst time for Guillorme in 2021 but it was an otherwise fine season that the team will be hoping can be somewhat replicated albeit with more health. With the signing of Eduardo Escobar and Robinson Cano rejoining the club after his suspension, Guillorme will also not be competing for a starting spot this time around, at least early in the season.

Luis will likely rejoin the team in 2022 with far less expectations this time around but still providing excellent defense as well as the hope that his April and July batting surges were more than just random hot streaks.  He’s at the very least a really solid backup defensive infielder that provides insurance in the case of an injury and can be trusted to not be completely overwhelmed at the plate.