New York Mets shortstop Amed Rosario took great strides last season. Compared to the player we saw over the final months of the 2017 season (Rosario made his MLB debut on August 1 of that season), the increases in the 23-year-old’s offensive output have been glaring.
The progress Rosario made from 2017 (.248/.271/.394, 28.8 percent strikeout rate, 1.8 percent walk rate in 170 plate appearances) to 2018 (.256/.295/.381, 20.1 percent strikeout rate, 4.9 percent walk rate in 592 plate appearances) is plainly evident, but the leaps and bounds he made over the course of last season — his first full major-league campaign — are what ought to excite the organization and their fans even more so.
As Eno Sarris of The Athletic pointed out in his terrific article comparing the development potential of Rosario, Byron Buxton, Adalberto Mondesi, Tim Anderson, and Lewis Brinson this week, from the first half of last season to the second, Amed Rosario increased his walk percentage (4.5 to 5.2), lowered his strikeout percentage (21.9 to 18.7), and — as one does — increased his weighted runs created plus rating from a disappointing 79 wRC+ to an almost-there 91 wRC+.
Even by traditional means, the Dominican product clearly gained more and more confidence as he became more comfortable facing the downright nastiness of major-league pitching day-in and day-out. After a pedestrian .238/.282/.325 slash line — albeit with five doubles and a triple over 87 plate appearances — over the Mets’ first month of the season, Rosario turned it on in May, putting up a .277/.289/.436 line with three homers, four more two-baggers, and ten runs batted in over 97 plate appearances.
June was a tough month for the developing shortstop, slashing just .216/.284/.311. If June was tough, July was torturous. Over 88 plate appearances, Rosario hit .210/.264/.346 with 15 strikeouts and six walks. Some wondered if the high-praise and blue-chip status bestowed on Rosario as a prospect had been a bit overambitious — a fate too many Mets prospects have encountered over the last two decades.
Then, all of a sudden, Amed Rosario began the transformation into the player we’d all been hearing so much about over the last half-dozen years. From August 1 (the one-year anniversary of his major-league debut) through the end of the season (239 plate appearances), Rosario slashed .284/.318/.413 with ten doubles, two triples, five home runs, 15 stolen bases, 46 strikeouts, 11 walks, and a gaudy .335 batting average on balls in play.
While his on-base percentage is certainly not where anyone would like it to be, the steps Rosario has taken to improve his game and the presumable confidence that accompanies the outstanding results of his hard work have to give Mets skipper Mickey Callaway, along with the new brain trust general manager Brodie Van Wagenen has assembled, a heavy dose of those same encouraging sentiments regarding Rosario’s development.
With Jed Lowrie — who hasn’t played shortstop since 2016 in Oakland but still could if called upon — now on the roster, as well as Jeff McNeil‘s ability to more-than-capably slide into the keystone position in that circumstance, Rosario has a sufficiently lit flame underneath him. One has to assume the combination of Lowrie and McNeil pose more of a threat to Rosario’s playing time than Jose Reyes did last year. Healthy competition is a great thing, and this roster should benefit from a whole lot of it.
If Amed Rosario can make similar strides this to the ones he took over the course of the 2018 season, it would bode extremely well for the Mets’ chances of succeeding in 2019. And if Rosario does indeed continue his development on the pace that he’s exhibited thus far, the New York Mets really might have a budding star.
