It is important to take this with a grain of salt, considering the source, but Mets manager Carlos Mendoza already likes what he is seeing from Bo Bichette in his transition to third base.
“He’s an athlete. We’re looking at a guy that has played shortstop his whole career,” Mendoza told ‘The Show‘ podcast. “Watching him moving around third, taking grounders, creating angles, and just the throws to first, I was telling him, ‘It looks like you’ve played here before.'”
Bichette is a career shortstop who played second base during the World Series last season with the Toronto Blue Jays after coming back from a knee injury. This will be the first time he has played third base since his travel-ball days in high school, and he is beginning to take reps at the position down in Florida ahead of spring training, which begins in two weeks.
But it is a move the 27-year-old was open to, as long as it meant signing with a contender. Francisco Lindor is a fixture at shortstop, and the Mets acquired Gold Glove second baseman Marcus Semien from the Texas Rangers in the Brandon Nimmo trade. Bichette’s defense at shortstop has been declining, and the knee injury he suffered in September was only going to put more stress on a position that stresses range.
“At shortstop, you need to make some long throws across the diamond. Third base as well,” Bichette said after his introductory press conference last week. “There is different positioning, different plays you have to deal with at third base that I’m going to have to get used to and learn, but I think it’s all attainable.”
Despite president of baseball operations David Stearns imploring that his priority this winter was to improve his squad’s run prevention, the Mets are slated to have both corners of their infield inhabited by players who have never played their respective positions.
Across from Bichette, career middle-infielder Jorge Polanco will be New York’s everyday first baseman.
“For both Bo and Jorge, there’s going to be a learning curve, and a majority of that is going to be where to be on certain plays,” Stearns said. “We’re probably going to make a mistake or two, but we’re also going to have elite range around the infield.”
