Vientos on breakout season: 'It's almost like a dream'

ATLANTA -- Mark Vientos' teammate J.D. Martínez has been quoted using the term “South Florida edge” when it comes to the quality of prospects drafted out of the Miami area. Vientos, who has emerged this season as one of the Mets’ most important offensive weapons, has fit the mold in 2024, clubbing 26 home runs with an .851 OPS and 139 OPS+ in 107 games.

Vientos, whose dad was born in the Dominican Republic and was always a huge baseball fan -- including a Mets fan stemming from his time living in New York -- has clawed his way into relevance on a club that had a half-game edge over the Diamondbacks for the second NL Wild Card going into the second game of their crucial series against the Braves in Atlanta on Wednesday.

“It’s been amazing, obviously,” Vientos said. “It’s almost like a dream I had for a while. It’s something that I’ve been visualizing and it’s happening.”

The truth is, it didn’t just “happen”. With several stops and starts between Triple-A Syracuse and the big league club since 2022, Vientos earned the Mets’ third-base job after a solid stint at Syracuse in 31 games to start the season. With the club’s most publicized third-base prospect, Brett Baty, still struggling with a .215/.282/.325 slash line in parts of three Major League seasons, Vientos’ opportunity came this year after he hit six home runs with an .876 OPS at Syracuse to start 2024. Although his defense (-6 OAA) is not as polished as Baty’s, Vientos’ calling card on offense has kept him in the lineup as a key part of the Mets’ attack.

With his 26th home run on Tuesday vs. the Braves, Vientos became the fifth player in Mets history to hit at least 26 round-trippers at age 24 or younger, joining Darryl Strawberry (four times), David Wright (three times), Michael Conforto and Pete Alonso.

“A lot of hard work in the offseason, a lot of hard work in season,” said Vientos, whose 26 home runs are third on the club after Alonso and Francisco Lindor. “Now I’m getting a chance to help my team make it to the playoffs. It’s fun. It’s the best.”

After registering a .610 OPS in 81 games at the big league level between 2022 and 2023, Vientos said that his confidence never wavered. Now, he's tied for the seventh most home runs among Major League third basemen.

“I always have really high expectations for myself. Maybe they’re not healthy expectations, because they could make me get upset sometimes. But I always have high expectations for my year and what I wanted,” said Vientos, a second-round Draft pick for the Mets in 2017. “Honestly, it’s coming close to almost everything that I was expecting. It’s been a great year.”

Perhaps equally as unexpected as Vientos’ emergence has been that of the Mets in the NL playoff race. They came into 2024 with tempered expectations after a 75-87 season last year and a new manager arriving in Carlos Mendoza, followed by a 24-35 start to the year.

“I think you could grab a video of me in Spring Training saying that everybody’s going to be surprised by us,” Vientos said. “And look, people are surprised. They weren’t expecting us to make it this far. Now, we’ve got to keep it going.”