The New York Mets view their young shortstop, Amed Rosario, as a future cornerstone of this franchise. His talent is supposedly undeniable, as he’s gotten some rave reviews and lofty comparisons thrown his way over the last few years.
Mets manager Mickey Callaway, earlier this spring, said he saw shades of Francisco Lindor in the 22-year-old Dominican native.
That may be a reach at this point in Rosario’s young career, but setting the bar high for rare talents like him usually translates into high-quality results. Lindor is the highly-gifted shortstop of the now-perennial contenders, the Cleveland Indians. His .293/.379/.474 career slash line and 114 OPS+ are most definitely best-case scenarios in the development of Rosario, offensively.
Defensively, there is no reason to believe that the young Mets shortstop isn’t as-already-capable as Lindor is. In Lindor’s three seasons in the big leagues, his combined UZR is 37.2, including a whopping 20.8 in 2016. In his 2015 rookie season, his UZR in 865.1 innings at shortstop was 10.5. Last year, in 1,377 innings it was 5.9, and he was still considered one of the best defensive shortstops in the league.
Amed Rosario, in 374.2 innings last season, had a UZR of 1.6. When multiplied and spread out across 1,377 innings (Lindor’s total from ’17), his estimated UZR over the course of the year would be 5.9, the exact same as Lindor’s UZR from last year. Of course, only time will tell if that actually transpires, though it’s conceivable, for sure.
Rosario was sidelined for a few games this past week with a knee injury but has since returned to the lineup. As long as he continues to show progress in Port St. Lucie, then we’ll almost certainly see him lining up on the first-base foul line on Opening Day for player introductions.
Even if he should falter and finish out the spring in a slump, there’s a great possibility it will have no bearing on his roster status.
But would the presence of a stop-gap solution (in case Rosario doesn’t give the impression that he’s ready for the job) do more good for this team than sticking with the still-developing Rosario? That’s a good question. Asdrubal Cabrera can play shortstop, as can, to a less-than-thrilling extent, Jose Reyes.
As I type this, the list of available middle-infielders who can-and-have played second base at the MLB-level is, to name a few, Brandon Phillips, Dustin Ackley, Omar Infante, Stephen Drew, Everth Cabrera, Ruben Tejada, Pedro Florimon and Yunel Escobar.
While many of those players listed above would certainly bring a new dynamic to this team (especially Phillips or Escobar), would bringing in one of these guys solidify this Mets lineup even more so than it already has been by offseason additions like Jay Bruce and Todd Frazier?
Better question, would it be taking this franchise in the right direction? While the cost would be considerably less to add any of the above-mentioned players than it would have been to add, say, Neil Walker, who signed with the Yankees today, to this team, the question remains; would bringing in an available player help the team or hurt the development of the young player who’d be losing his job, in Rosario?
Rosario is projected to be a plus-type ballplayer by many in the baseball world. While projections mean nothing in the big picture, stunting the growth of a player with the type of potential that he has could prove to be a damaging course of action in his ongoing development as an MLB player.
If Rosario should falter, personally, I’d give Gavin Cecchini a shot at second base (moving Cabrera to short) before bringing in a new guy. Having shown up to Port St. Lucie with a noticeable amount of added-muscle this spring, the Mets 24-year-old second-base prospect has had himself a fantastic Grapefruit League schedule so far (.350/.458/1.258, two home runs, five RBI in 20 at-bats).
The risks are simply greater than the reward, in my opinion, to do anything else besides attempt to rectify this still very much hypothetical issue in-house.
Whether Mets’ GM Sandy Alderson, manager Mickey Callaway, and the rest of the team’s brain trust decides to make a move or change to the projected Opening Day roster so close to the beginning of the season remains to be seen. But one thing is for certain, it’s always fun to speculate.
