Mets infielders, learning new positions, try a HORSE of different color

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Baseball is a game, and sometimes, that game is HORSE.

Well, it was on Wednesday, anyway.

It’s the second week of Mets spring training, and Mark Vientos is sprawled on the Clover Park grass trying to backhand a machine-fed baseball with an absurdly tiny glove. Brett Baty tries his hand at it, and Jorge Polanco does, too, laughing. At one point, Marcus Semien sidles up with a flat leather disk strapped to his palm and watches the ball splat off the center and into the air, where he barehands the ricochet.

“We were trying to do tricks,” Vientos said. “I like it. It changes things up. It makes things fun. We’re having fun playing a game of HORSE, but with ground balls.”

It’s also part of new bench coach Kai Correa’s repertoire of teaching tools. Training gloves aren’t new, but they’re not a terribly common sight, and these particular models, made by a company called Valle, make fielding hard now so it can be easier later.

It’s one leg in an all-encompassing effort to make good on president of baseball operations David Stearns’ goal to improve the Mets’ run prevention. The Mets have four infielders learning new positions: Ideally, Polanco and Bo Bichette, both shortstops, will transition to first and third, respectively. Vientos and Baty, meanwhile, have also been taking reps at first (Vientos has played 17 games at the position and Baty none).

It’s a short runway to Opening Day and Correa, highly regarded for his defensive acumen, knows that sometimes, getting where you need to be requires a little rewiring.

“Maybe they train their entire life, but very specifically in a certain way and then this is suddenly an activity that has it click for them,” Correa told Newsday. “Professional players are creatures of habit and routines have carried them to being in the 99th percentile [of athletes], but sometimes those routines can have a terminal velocity. You’ve gotten this far, but a slight variation to that routine can get you to that next step.”

To wit, the gloves. The miniaturized one “is going to ratchet up your intentionality” and help hone your mechanics, Correa said. Once you master that and get into game action, “the game feels slow and now your glove feels big.” There are slightly flatter gloves that encourage using a second hand, including a “pancake” glove “that helps you stay through the ball, so it cleans up your mechanics,” Vientos said.

Correa also often uses a lighter, more buoyant baseball that’s harder to control.

“If you don’t catch the ball perfectly, it’ll bounce out," Correa said. “Like anything else in life, if you study something and you intentionally practice something, your odds of [approaching] mastery go up. That’s what we’re trying to do — ratchet up the training environment.”

Polanco, who’s played one major-league inning at first, appreciates the challenge. “It makes your hands softer, because now you really have to focus,” he said. “When you get the bigger glove, now you’re more comfortable. The drills they do help a lot. We have a little machine, the balls come out quicker and you’re just reacting.”

Vientos should be an interesting case study. His limited range can make him a defensive liability, but he's certainly made efforts at improvement. Last offseason, he worked with Francisco Lindor, and this offseason, he was in contact with Correa and started integrating his advice while still at home. A move across the diamond is its own challenge, but Correa sees potential.

“Mark was very proactive in approaching us,” Correa said, referencing third-base coach Tim Leiper. “I think he hasn’t reached his potential as a defender but he’s in a place where he feels the momentum of getting better. Sometimes you bang your head against the wall enough that your finally have that breakthrough and sometimes, success at the major-league level for position players is asymmetrical . . .  And I think first base has given him a great opportunity to restart as well.”

And sometimes, that restart looks like splaying yourself on the ground while your teammates laugh with you (or at you).

“It makes you better and you have fun with your team doing it,” Vientos said. “Instead of just taking ground balls and making it super repetitive, we switch it up.”

Oh, who won that game of HORSE, by the way?

“I did,” Vientos said, laughing. “Obviously.”