Where the NY Mets mishandled Ronny Mauricio long before 2026

Ronny Mauricio will turn 25 on April 4. He’s still a kid, but also not really. A top 100 prospect for several seasons, reaching a peak of being ranked 42nd by Baseball Prospectus heading into the 2021 campaign, it almost feels as if the New York Mets have mishandled him somewhere along the way.

Carlos Mendoza has pretty much confirmed the plan for Mauricio is to play as much as possible in Triple-A. He needs the playing time, understandably so. Letting him sit on the bench and do nothing is counterintuitive to his development.

Last year included 61 games and 184 trips to the plate for Mauricio. He hit well from the left side, doing practically nothing from the right. The Mets haven’t necessarily made mistakes along the way yet something about his career seems a bit off.

What do the Mets really think about Ronny Mauricio?

Different regimes and different shot callers, Mauricio wasn’t a big league consideration until the 2023 season when he finished the year in the majors. The Mets probably should have elevated him earlier than they did. He made his big league debut on September 1.

This was pre-David Stearns with Billy Eppler still running the team. It was a season featuring a larger dose of Francisco Alvarez, Brett Baty, and Mark Vientos. Mauricio got left behind until rosters expanded. A hot August in Syracuse gave the Mets no choice but to add him to the major league roster.

Mauricio had already lingered on the 40-man roster, first getting placed there ahead of the 2021 Rule 5 Draft. He had a powerful year in Double-A during the 2022 season, smacking 26 doubles and 26 home runs but with only a .296 OBP. He was striking out a lot and not walking much.

This was around the time when the Mets started to fail him. Already on the 40-man roster, it was time to give Mauricio the added challenge of facing Triple-A pitching. He hit .296/.309/.500 in August in Double-A. Unless they felt like they’d be rewarding him for not improving his patience at the plate, why hold him back further?

There’s no reason why Mauricio needed a full year in Double-A during the 2022 campaign and another nearly full one in Triple-A during the 2023 season. The Mets couldn’t have foreseen the 2023-2024 offseason injury in the Winter League that wiped out his playing time completely in 2024. Nevertheless, they were already playing from behind with him by wasting his first minor league option in 2022 and second in 2023.

The Mets are nearing the same point with Mauricio that they were with Luisangel Acuna. Unproven at the major leagues, using up his final major league option at the start of the 2026 season takes away any added wiggle room.

Roster placement isn’t the only way the Mets mishandled him. Mauricio didn’t play an inning in the minor leagues other than shortstop until 2023. Francisco Lindor was already signed. Why the late start for a move to third base? He had 26 games in left field for Syracuse in 2023, a project which seems to have been abandoned. That was already an odd roster placement as the Mets had already signed Brandon Nimmo to his extension by the time that experiment began.

It’s still a big “maybe” as far as Mauricio goes in terms of what he can accomplish with the Mets.