Mickey Callaway spoke before Friday night’s game against the Pittsburgh Pirates and said that the Mets are likely not going to test out the Amed Rosario in center field experiment this season.
“The one thing we did focus on — and knew we were going to focus on before we did anything with [Rosario] — was to continue to try and help him develop at short,” Callaway said, “and it seems like that’s really paying off. So I think for now that we’ll probably continue just to focus at short and go from there.”
Rosario’s defensive improvement has been well noted by many as despite having -15 DRS on the year, he actually has 1 DRS since the All-Star Break. Also worth noting is that after having nine errors prior to May 8, Rosario has four since then and only one over the past month, as mentioned by John Sheridan in his article about the infield defense behind Marcus Stroman.
Considering the Mets lack of a true center fielder, the team had been considering putting Rosario there and seeing if he could develop into a long-term solution at the position.
However, that quote suggests the team has no interest in moving him away from his natural position after seeing him make significant strides there.
It also might be partially due to the Mets not wanting him to be distracted with a new position, given he is hitting well also. Over the last 30 games, the 23-year-old is hitting .324/.367/.495 with three homers and eight RBI.
On the year, Rosario is hitting .276/.316/.438 with 11 homers (career-high) and 47 RBI to give himself a 99 wRC+ and 1.2 fWAR.
