Mark Vientos Has Gotten Hot at the Right Time for the Mets

While things might not look pretty, at the time of this writing, the New York Mets still hold a playoff spot.

As their pitching staff has taken a complete 180 from the first half, the offense has woken up in a big way, especially in August. Perhaps hidden behind Juan Soto’s first career 30-30 season, Pete Alonso’s 113 RBI, and the solid performances of Francisco Lindor and Brandon Nimmo, Mark Vientos is quietly enjoying a resurgent second half.

After bursting onto the scene last season, Vientos’ overall numbers in 2025 look rather pedestrian. A .241 batting average, a sub-.300 on-base percentage and an OPS right around the league average mark. His 17 home runs are solid (especially when considering he spent over three weeks on the sidelines), but for a power hitter, that’s nothing to write home about.

Vientos was always a solid prospect in a thin Mets farm system but never a terribly highly-touted minor leaguer on a league-wide scale. Nonetheless, after being called up for good in late May of 2024, he became one of the best hitters in New York’s lineup.

He slashed .266/.322/.516 with an .837 OPS and 27 home runs in just 111 games. While he had lost rookie status from stints at the big-league level in ’22 and ’23, 2024 was Vientos’ first time getting consistent playing time, something that obviously benefited the third baseman.

By the time the playoffs rolled around, Vientos did not miss a beat. He went 3-for-12 with a pair of RBI in a Wild Card Series win over Milwaukee, before exploding in the NLDS to the tune of a 9-for-16 series against Philadelphia.

In the Mets’ second-round victory over their NL East rivals, he drilled two home runs, including a game-tying, two-run shot off Matt Strahm in Game 2.

Vientos added another three home runs, with one of them being a grand slam, in an NLCS loss to the Dodgers, capping off a playoff run that saw him hit .327 with five homers out of the park and 14 RBI.

Entering 2025, expectations were high for the 25-year-old Vientos, but he struggled to get going. Now, he has reverted to his 2024 self, lengthening the Mets’ lineup as they look to punch their ticket to October.

Vientos’ Struggles To Start 2025

Many around the league tabbed Vientos to struggle entering the season, due to his trouble hitting breaking pitches (.171 batting average against) a year ago.

These problems came to fruition. Through the first half of play in 2025, Vientos struggled to hit breaking balls. While he hit .279 against four-seam fastballs, Vientos’ average against sliders (.103), sweepers (.219) and knuckle-curves (.200) all contributed to a .657 OPS in that time.

Interestingly enough, Vientos hit .571 against the 61 ordinary curveballs he saw, but I digress.

After hitting 27 home runs in 454 plate appearances (one every 16.8 times up) last season, Vientos hit just six over his first 273 plate appearances this year, which works out to one every 45.5 trips to the plate. However, he also slashed his strikeout rate from nearly 33% to under 25% while his walk rate dropped only slightly.

Vientos, who was striking out less than he did during his breakout season, was seemingly sapped of any power in the first half. What caused his slugging percentage to be cut nearly in half, from .516 to .371?

Simply put, he wasn’t punishing fastballs.

During his breakout campaign, Vientos made a living by drilling fastballs, allowing him to cover for his inability to hit pitches with spin. This year, at least for the first half, his batting average (.319 → .279), slugging percentage (.670 → .544) and wOBA (.449 → .346) against fastballs all fell off.

Early in the season, Mets hitting coach Eric Chavez spoke to Vientos’ stat discrepancies between pitch types. Confident that Vientos would eventually hit the fastball, Chavez placed his emphasis on the third baseman’s ability to hit breaking pitches.

“I’d rather him be late on a heater instead of chasing that 2-1 slider because in the long run, he’s always going to get to that heater; it’s in his back pocket,” Chavez told The Athletic’s Will Sammon. “He’s in this transformation of becoming just a really good hitter and not just a fastball hitter.”

Making the Adjustment

While Mets fans have called for Chavez’s head all year, he was right about the fate of Vientos’ season.

It is no coincidence that when Vientos receives consistent playing time, things turn in his direction. Of course, this relies on him playing well enough to warrant playing time, but the 2024 season was the first time in his career that he got consistent reps in Queens.

Despite being handed the keys to the starting third base job this year, Vientos lost it quickly. Between bad performance, a trip to the IL, and hot streaks from Brett Baty and Ronny Mauricio, which usurped him of an everyday spot in the lineup, Vientos simply never got going in the first half. Certainly, shaky defense at the hot corner does not help his case, making him a better option as a DH.

It seems that ever since Vientos started receiving solid playing time again, his numbers have perked up.

Since the All-Star break, Vientos has appeared in 41 of the Mets’ 50 games and is slashing .270/.325/.561 with an .886 OPS. Of his 17 home runs this year, 11 have come since the Midsummer Classic.

“It hasn’t been easy for him,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said in a postgame interview on August 18. “A lot of ups and downs. Started the year not the way he wanted it or anticipated it, [or how] we anticipated it. And it hasn’t been easy for him the past couple of weeks, with inconsistent playing time.”

Even more recently, Vientos is hitting .291 with 10 home runs and a 1.083 OPS in his last 24 games. In that span, he has driven in 26 runs.

While he is not back to destroying fastballs the way he did in 2024, Vientos has made an adjustment with breaking balls.

Not only is Vientos hitting breaking pitches, but he is demolishing them. Having seen 19.2% sliders since the break, he is hitting .364 while slugging .955 with four home runs.

As he always has, Vientos is also hitting offspeed pitches well. So long as he can sustain his success against breaking pitches and revert to his 2024 self when it comes to hitting the heat, Vientos should have no issue putting his miserable start to 2025 in the rearview mirror.

With this second-half surge, his season stats have almost begun to resemble something respectable, a shocking development given how bad he was to begin the year.

Is it Sustainable?

I think it is.

While we cannot call his first half a true “sophomore slump,” since Vientos did not have rookie status in 2024, this season does resemble that phenomenon. One of the most notorious second-year slumpers in recent years was Corbin Carroll, who, after winning the NL Rookie of the Year in 2023, had just a .749 OPS in 2024.

In Carroll’s case, he had a .635 OPS in the first half and a .919 in the second half, slugging 17 home runs in his final 64 games. The elephant in the room is Carroll’s speed and defense, which give him value even in the midst of an offensive downturn, something Vientos does not boast.

Otherwise, Vientos’ second half thus far mimics Carroll’s from last year. Now, a year removed, Carroll has posted an .879 OPS, been an All-Star and is on his way to a 30-homer, 30-stolen base season.

The Mets are reeling, as a team that was once 21 games above .500 is now clinging to a Wild Card spot. If they want to make the push to the finish line and potentially make noise in October, they will need Vientos to stay hot.

All signs point to that being the case.