Why Amed Rosario is having a better year for the Mets than it appears

Mets Shortstop Amed Rosario has thus far had a quiet, yet very productive start to the season. Here’s a breakdown of his performance so far.

So far through the 2019 season, the high points for the Mets have been Jeff McNeil‘s continued consistency at the plate carrying over from his rookie year in 2018 and rookie Peter Alonso‘s success at hitting for both power and average early on in his bright young career.

One Mets player who has been over look to this point however is shortstop Amed Rosario, who appears to have corrected a lot of his mistakes from his first full year in the majors in 2018 and appears to have turned a corner.

Originally billed as the “second coming of Jose Reyes” when he was first called up to the Mets in late 2017, Rosario struggled in his initial stint with the team, as well as in the first half of the 2018 season.

For 2018, Rosario began the year slowly and worried some fans that his call up may have been premature, as he struggled to consistently get on base for the Mets during the first half of the year before rebounding and finished the season with a strong showing in August and September.

Rosario finished the year batting .256 on 142 hits with a .295 OBP, slugging 9 home runs with 51 RBI and a team leading 24 stolen bases. He also struck out 119 times and drew only 29 walks in 2018. While these are not necessarily terrible numbers, they are far from what fans were expecting when the former top prospect was called up to the big leagues.

It is also worth noting that Rosario was shaky in the field in 2018, as while he had a decent fielding percentage of .969, he committed 16 errors for the year, tied for 6th most in the National League among position players.

Coming into 2019, Mets fans were hoping that Amed would take another step forward and expand upon the success he had at the plate late in 2018.

The three biggest areas that Rosario needed to improve on coming into the season was hitting consistently, drawing more walks and improved defense as shortstop for New York.

Thus far, Rosario has shown improvement in the first 2 of those 3 needs.

Through the first 21 games of the Mets 2019 season, Rosario has started all 21 of them at short stop for New York. Over this stretch, Rosario has batted .262 with a .303 OBP, hitting 1 home run and driving in 13 RBI.

While those numbers remain to appear average, Rosario has played better than those number would represent.

To begin the 2019 campaign, Rosario has had at least one hit in all but 3 games, recording a hit in 18 of these first 21 games. Additionally, he is third on the team in RBI, having driven in 13 runs over the Mets’ first 21 games despite typically batting in toward the back of the lineup.

If Rosario finishes the season at this pace, he would finish the 2019 season with 170 hits, 8 home runs, 100 RBI, and 39 walks, which aside from the home runs, would all be improvements from 2018.

Despite these numbers, there are some parts of his performance that still need work. Under these same projections, Rosario is on pace to strike out 177 times in 2019, which would significantly higher than last season.

Additionally, which he has improved his numbers at the plate, Rosario has had a few issues in the field. As previously stated, he has started all 21 games at shortstop for the Mets in 2019, over which, he has committed 5 errors, which is the most among shortstops to this point in the year. While these issues do not negate the strides he has made, they remain areas that must be addressed for Rosario to become a complete player.

While he has shown improvement, Rosario is still not yet a polished player, but some times it is easy to forget that he is only 23 years old with a lot of untapped potential.

Want your voice heard? Join the Rising Apple team!

Write for us!

All of these numbers should be promising signs of things to come and with any luck, Rosario will take his game another step forward in 2019, and become the franchise player we all know he can be.