There have been many frustrating storylines involving the Mets so far during the 2023 season. One of them is the fact that top prospect Ronny Mauricio continues to be stuck in Syracuse. And that’s happened despite a big year at the plate.
Many people have been trying to will a promotion for Mauricio into existence. There have been four different rumors of Ronny being on the verge of landing in the big leagues. Unfortunately, all of them have been false. His latest chance to reach the majors came this past weekend when Luis Guillorme hit the injured list. Instead of calling up Mauricio, New York recalled infielder Danny Mendick.
Ronny had a rough June (.620 OPS), but his bat has returned thus far in July. Across 388 plate appearances this year, the left-handed slugger is slashing .297/.345/.511. That includes 43 extra-base hits (25 doubles, two triples, 16 home runs), 56 RBI, 53 runs scored, and 15 steals.
So, what the heck gives? The Mets are terrible and are all but certainly going to be waving the white flag at the trade deadline. Why not just bring him up now? Here are the reasons given by general manager Billy Eppler, as reported by MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo:
"I'd rather that happen [in Syracuse] than up here," Billy Eppler said, adding that Mauricio still has offensive benchmarks the Mets want him to reach as well.
More Eppler: "But we're really excited with what Ronny's done this season. There's a really good future ahead of him."
— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) July 23, 2023
Unlike Eppler’s reasoning for making Brett Baty start 2023 in Triple-A, this makes a little more sense. Prior to this season, Mauricio had exactly zero professional games logged at left field and just one at second base (and that came during Winter Ball).
He’s been getting consistent time at both positions over the past month or so (despite playing shortstop on Sunday, which people didn’t like after reading the above tweets). We’ve seen players like Lucas Duda and Daniel Murphy try and learn new positions on the fly in the majors. It wasn’t exactly pretty. I’m not saying it’d be as rough for Ronny. But New York is trying to keep its slim postseason hopes alive over the next week. Calling up a top prospect to make his debut and continue learning new positions probably isn’t the best idea.
Then again, this is the same front office that said Francisco Alvarez wasn’t defensively ready to be a big-league catcher, and that has been proven wrong.
As for the offensive benchmarks, one has to assume this pertains to his plate discipline/swing decisions while in the batter’s box. And despite a strong July, the overall body of work since the end of May hasn’t looked anything like the start of his year. But honestly, I can’t help but think the Mets are also holding him in Triple-A to keep that trade value up in case they need to make a big move.
We know Eppler and Co. have resisted trading away top prospects. Plus, it’s hard to see them doing something bold with a 46-53 record. They’re still 7.5 games out of the final NL Wild Card spot. If the Mets sell, though, that will hypothetically free up playing time for dudes like Mauricio and Mark Vientos.
We can only hope. With how disappointing this year has gone, that’s about the only thing left to look forward to.
You can reach Matt Musico at matt.musico@xlmedia.com. You can follow him on Twitter: @mmusico8.
