Mets Shortstop Battle: Andres Gimenez vs. Amed Rosario

The New York Mets thought Amed Rosario was the answer at shortstop. In 2020, Andres Gimenez looks like a contender for the job.

Over the last few years, Amed Rosario has made significant strides in his development at the major league level. Coming into 2020, the New York Mets were hopeful that Rosario would continue to make strides towards improving all aspects of his game but so far that has not happened.

Through 58 at-bats Rosario has hit to a .207/.207/.310/.517 slash line. That is not good by any means. Rosario does not have a walk thus far and he seems to have regressed a little with his plate discipline, swinging at 42% of pitches outside of the strike zone, up from 38.1% in 2019.

Now to be fair Rosario did get injured about a week into the season and that is probably a contributing factor to his slow start. However, that opened the door at least initially for Andres Gimenez to fill in at shortstop. He performed quite well the few games he started for Rosario, impressing in all facets of the game.

With Rosario having been out with a stomach bug Gimenez has continued to get playing time and he has played so well he has now thrust himself into the National League Rookie of the Year conversation.

Through 46 at-bats Gimenez is hitting .286/.327/.388/.715 with two triples and five stolen bases. He has been a ball magnet in the field making some incredible defensive plays and turning fast double plays.

As Gimenez gets more playing time, one question keeps getting larger. When Rosario is back, and Robinson Cano is healthy what happens to Gimenez? At this point, Gimenez has to be playing every day and one could make the argument that Cano can DH but Dom Smith also needs to play most days if not every day. Things can get messy real fast.