Thank Heavens for the Fu Manchu

Whatever Luis Guillorme had to do to earn a starting job, he's done it.

It’s still Thanksgiving Weekend, which makes it as good a time as ever to give thanks and make sure others are doing the same. And if anyone needs a reminder to give thanks, it’s the Mets. Because they’ve got a special player in Luis Guillorme, but somehow, they don’t seem thankful at all.

The news of Robinson Canó’s suspension has thrown the Mets infield into a state of uncertainty. Even now, with the smoke beginning to clear, it’s hard to say what the Mets starting infield would look like if Opening Day was tomorrow. Dom Smith and Pete Alonso, of course, will platoon at first. But after that, the Mets have four players for three positions. To play second, third, and short, they’ve got Jeff McNeil, Andrés Giménez, Amed Rosario, and Guillorme. So what happens? Who plays where, and who sits?

From a statistical standpoint, the answer is obvious. Among McNeil, Giménez, Rosario, and Guillorme, Rosario has to be the odd one out. The ideal alignment probably has McNeil at second, with Giménez at short and Guillorme at third. It’s a strange thing to say, that Amed Rosario, long a heralded prospect, is suddenly 25 years old and hasn’t developed nearly as much as he needs to. But at this point, it’s almost obvious. As of now, between Guillorme and Rosario, Guillorme is the better player.  

Rosario’s woes on offense are well-documented. He walked only four times in 2020, and put up a .272 OBP. He didn’t hit for much power, with a .371 slugging percentage; his .643 OPS came out to a 76 OPS+, meaning Rosario was 76% as good as an average hitter. 

Guillorme, by contrast, shone at the plate. He batted .333/.426/.439, good for an .865 OPS and a 141 OPS+. He won’t repeat those numbers over a full season with regular playing time, of course. But he’s proven — and then some — that he’s a competent major-league hitter.

Rosario, to his credit, has improved mightily on defense. After three sub-average seasons, according to Statcast’s Outs Above Average metric, Rosario was worth +2 OAA in 2020. But he’s still not the defender that Guillorme is. There aren’t really any metrics to back this up, since Guillorme hasn’t gotten enough playing time to build up a representative sample, but all the scouting reports say the same thing: he’s a star. 

“Given the chance to play a full season in the majors in the next three or four years, Guillorme could be a Gold Glove shortstop,” wrote Tyler Oringer in a 2018 scouting report for Baseball Prospectus. “His fluid motion and soft and outrageously quick hands make him a plus shortstop and if needed an elite second baseman.”

“He's not the quickest middle infielder,” Jim Callis wrote for MLB.com around the same time, “but his hands, reflexes and instincts are as good as anyone's in the Minors.”

The sample is small, but so far, Guillorme looks as good as advertised. In 2020, he was worth +2 OAA, the same value as Rosario, in barely half as many attempts. He wasn’t charged with a single error. And he made some plays, like a diving stop and rolling throw that somehow found its way to Dom Smith’s glove as the Mets protected a one-run lead in the ninth inning, that showed just how excellent he was. 

Think about it this way. Say I’d asked you, in January 2020, “what does Luis Guillorme have to do to earn a spot in the starting lineup?” What would the answer have been? Prove his defense is as good as the scouts say? Solid glove all around the infield with OPS above .800? OBP above .350? No errors? Do all of that — and more?

Whatever the bar was, Guillorme has cleared it easily. He’s now into All-Star territory; surely a starting spot must come with that? Even passing over his apparent love of the absurd and quirky, as evidenced by the ridiculous Fu Manchu mustache he sported on the final day of the season that led me to immediately buy his jersey, Luis Guillorme has been far better than anyone — besides me, that is, but I don’t want to gloat — could have reasonably expected. Whatever he had to do to earn playing time, he’s done it. 

To be fair, in Amed Rosario, the Mets now face a conundrum. Do they just sit him down, and let all of his latent talent languish on the bench? Do they trade him, when his value is at its lowest? Or do they play him, and let the superior player ride the bench?

It’s a problem — but it’s not Guillorme’s problem. He didn’t make Rosario chase all those breaking balls in the dirt. All Guillorme can do is play excellent baseball, as he did in 2020. In 2021, he deserves a chance to do so full-time.