Jonathan Araúz is one of two infielders the Mets have brought to major league camp this year. Araúz was signed by the Phillies in 2014. He was packaged with Ken Giles and sent to the Astros for five players (most notably including Vince Velasquez). He was left unprotected by the Astros before the 2019 Rule V draft where he was selected by the Red Sox. Araúz made his major league debut the following season.
Araúz got into 25 games in the shortened 2020 season hitting .250/.325/.319 but took a step backwards the following season hitting .185/.274/.369 over 28 games and 75 plate appearances. Last season he went hitless in 12 trips to the plate for the Red Sox and was later picked up by the Orioles where he hit .179/.207/.286 over nine games.
Jonathan has done all this while still being only 24-years old. His non-roster invitee profile reads more like an older veteran player considering the amount of different organizations he’s been in and the amount of times he has been up and down already. The Mets signed him for depth. He’s here in case the Mets need an emergency infielder and if the Mets don’t want to burn an option for one of their top infielder prospects.
He is directly competing this spring with José Peraza who is back with the Mets on a non-roster invite as well. It is a little difficult right now to predict how much we’ll see Araúz this spring. He’s playing for Panama in the World Baseball Classic, and Showalter said he was going to prioritize players in the WBC but Panama is playing in Taiwan (Pool A) for the opening round. This obviously involves quite a bit of travel time compared to the games that the other members of the Mets will be playing in.
There are several former Mets playing Pool A as well including Ruben Tejada, Matt Harvey and Yoenis Céspedes. You can check them out and do some early morning scouting of Araúz once the tournament starts on March 8th!
