When should the NY Mets start worrying about hitless Mark Vientos?

It hasn’t been a smooth start for Mark Vientos who, as much as anyone else, needed to show some life in spring training. The New York Mets slugger was a perceived trade candidate this offseason. While you’ll still find him mentioned in plenty of speculative trades, the idea of dealing him shortly before Opening Day comes with the added two-word question of “for what?”

Vientos will join Team Nicaragua in early March when the World Baseball Classic begins. He better hope something changes with the Mets beforehand. Although he has struck out only twice with the second coming after an 11-pitch at-bat on Thursday, Vientos is 0 for 10 with a hit by pitch being his only time on base.

When do we hit the panic button on Mark Vientos?

Before you start sweating, let’s see if this is anything new for Vientos. In 2024, he led the Mets with 5 spring training home runs but a rather tame .232/.259/.536 slash line. The signing of J.D. Martinez pushed him out of contention for a DH role as did the presence of DJ Stewart.

He did kind of the same thing in 2025 after his monstrous 2024 regular season and playoff run. Vientos batted .239/.345/.370 with 2 home runs last year in the preseason. He’d end up getting off to a slow start once the games began to count.

The good news for Vientos is that being away from the Mets won’t diminish his playing time. He’s one of the more prominent players on Team Nicaragua. Erasmo Ramirez is maybe the only other one who could challenge unless you want to consider Jeter Downs who is only someone you know because of his first name.

If we’re going to be concerned about Vientos’ spring training results, we’ll need to feel the same way about any WBC ones.

It’s very likely Vientos doesn’t miss more than a week from Mets camp. Nicaragua isn’t considered a favorite in the tournament. Their first scheduled game is March 6th. They play each of the next three days and could be done after.

A bad spring followed by a strong start isn’t unfathomable for anyone. Vientos had an okay spring last year and a horrid start. It took him until April 27th to raise his batting average over .200. Through 14 games he was 6 for 50 with a .120/.241/.160 slash line. He scored 2 runs and drove in only 1.

Making contact this spring is a positive sign. However, with Baseball Reference measuring his opponent quality at 7.5 this spring (a unique average of the pitchers he has faced) it’s as if Vientos is facing players caught between Double-A and Triple-A. He should be hammering them.

Vientos will be one of the most discussed Mets players this year in a tug-of-war format of “he should play more” like Mike Francesa insists already versus “just cut him.” The Mets won’t do the latter.

It’s important for Vientos to succeed at some point this spring because regular at-bats will be hard to find regardless of his performance. The time to worry is after the WBC. If he returns to the Mets hitless after representing Nicaragua it’s time to start being concerned.