It’s a race to finish this Top 30 article series by the end of the year! Today we will look at a prospect the Marlins were supposedly interested in as part of a package for Realmuto, Mark Vientos!
Trading Mark would have been a shame. There’s a great anecdote in the Baseball America book that Mark’s father is a Mets fan and was super excited when the Mets drafted him. That’s the type of story that needs to be followed to a conclusion with Mark breaking into the majors with the Mets.
That being said, don’t look Vientos in the bigs soon, mostly due to his age. He’s quite young. He turned 18 in December the year he was drafted.
Baseball America before last year gave him an overall rank of 55, with a 50 hit, 55 power, 30 speed, 50 fielding and 55 arm. Those numbers also match their write up noting his arm strength, how the Mets hope his swing translates into power.
In his rookie year he hit a combined .262/.318/.398 between the Gulf Coast league and Kingsport where he was 2.5 years younger than average and 3.3 years younger than average respectively. Baseball America noted that if he had a good spring he could make it to Columbia in 2018. That didn’t happen, but his 2018 in general definitely good enough to lock him into Columbia.
Last year, still 2.3 years younger than the average player in Kingsport, he hit .287/.389/.489 hitting 11 homers in 262 PA’s. Technically Brooklyn should be next but if he has a good spring, I think the Mets have to give him a shot in Columbia. If he was one year older, and he put up those numbers in Kingsport I would be more confident that he would be starting the season out in Columbia.
So lets see what Vientos does! He’s still growing into his frame. It would not be a surprise if he started in Columbia or if he started in Brooklyn and played the last 6 weeks of the season in Columbia.
My concern right now about Vientos is outside of his control. I would want to keep Vientos for at least two more years before deciding if he was going to come up to the majors with the Mets or be traded to another team. His stock value in the short term is probably just going to increase, and it feels like the Mets could regret having him as a side-piece in a trade deal rather than a center-piece.
