Mark Vientos continues to perform well at the plate, but his future as a third baseman remains unclear.
Vientos, who again batted second a day after hitting two home runs from the spot, proved more than capable offensively, but when asked about the team’s “long-term” situation at third base, president of baseball operations David Stearns wasn’t ready to name Vientos to the permanent position.
“Mark has done a great job solidifying himself as a major league player,” Stearns said Friday about third base beyond this season. “He’s improved defensively and has started to use him regularly at third base, so he deserves a lot of credit for that. Right now, I’m focused on this year and we’ll evaluate the next few years in the offseason.”
Since taking over at third base from Brett Batey in mid-May, Vientos has been more productive than anyone else in the lineup.
He had one hit and one run in three at-bats in Friday’s 7-3 win over the Marlins.
He leads the team in OPS and OPS+, and manager Carlos Mendoza has been impressed enough to put him at the top of the lineup the past two games after batting fifth, sixth and seventh for Vientos for most of the season.
“The great thing about Mark is he’s adapted throughout the season, both in the batting order and defensively,” Stearns said. “He was promoted to Triple-A, where there’s a lot of emphasis on defense, and now he understands how major league pitchers attack him. Mark is still a very young player. He’s not going to be perfect. We don’t expect him to be perfect.”
So while Vientos is performing well enough as a third baseman, his advanced metrics still aren’t great.
Of the 20 players who have played at least 550 innings at third base this season, none have a worse Defensive Runs Saved rating than Vientos’ minus-6, according to Fangraphs, and Statcast ranks Vientos 20th out of 24 third basemen in terms of Defensive Runs Value.
“He’s made progress at third base and has made up for his shortcomings offensively, but there are certainly concerns. He just doesn’t move well,” said one National League scout who watched Vientos at third base last season and this year.
Batty, who took over at third base in his place, is playing second base as well as third base for Triple-A Syracuse.
Stearns said the team values Batty’s work at second base and now views him as a multi-position player.
But Batty’s batting struggles have surfaced in the minor leagues, where he has a .574 OPS and 23 strikeouts in 80 at-bats so far.
And his slump goes back even further than that, with a .668 OPS in 36 games since June 29th.
