It’s Time for Jose Iglesias in Queens
For my money, the best play I’ve ever seen an infielder make was on August 12, 2013, by Jose Iglesias. Then in his first of what would be five seasons with the Detroit Tigers, Iglesias was at shortstop when Josh Phegley looped a broken-bat flare just over pitcher Doug Fister.
Iglesias, who was playing back, sprinted in, barehanded it, and made a seemingly impossible throw to Prince Fielder at first while almost fully horizontal with the ground to nab Phegley.
I still don’t know how he did it.
Is it the best play ever? Of course not. But it’s easily the play I think about the most.
Joey Wendle has committed three errors on the season. He’s only had 32 fielding chances. It’s the most on the team besides Omar Narváez, and it’s different because he’s a catcher. Tomás Nido has two, and Jeff McNeil is the only other non-catcher to have more than one, and he’s had almost four times as many fielding chances as Wendle.
It’s not even just the errors. On the first game of the series vs. the Chicago Cubs just last week, Wendle infamously tried to turn a double play instead of throwing home, where he would have easily thrown out the runner. It was a softly hit ball, and the batter was fast. It’s almost more inexcusable than the errors because it’s a mental mistake. The Cubs tied the game and would go on to win, largely because of the Wendle misplay. His advanced defensive metrics back up that he’s been below average.
There’s a pretty good argument that Wendle has single-handedly cost the Mets multiple games this early in the season with his glove alone. For a team like the Mets who will probably float around .500 for most of the season and hope to get hot in September to grab a Wild Card spot, your backup infielder just can’t be giving games away.
Add in the fact he’s hitting .250/.273/.281 with a measly .554 OPS and 63 OPS+ … and Wendle has probably been the worst all-around player on the Mets in 2024.
The Mets have Iglesias sitting in Triple-A, and he’s coming off a hot week in which he had eight hits and two homers. It’s time to make the call. Iglesias should be in Queens when the Mets open up their series vs. the Braves on Friday.
Obviously, Iglesias is not the same player he was in 2013. When he last played in the big leagues in 2022, he had exactly zero outs above average, ranking in the 45th percentile in baseball. He’s 34, he’s not going to be as good as he was in his early 20s, but he still grades out basically as average.
What he will do is make the routine plays. Wendle hasn’t been able to do that. Tim Healey of Newsday said it best in spring training, tweeting “Jose Iglesias is still an absolute delight to watch play infield.”
He still has enough talent to play a strong infield, even if he doesn’t have the range he had a decade ago.
The reason Joey Wendle is on the roster instead of Mark Vientos is because if he wasn’t, the Mets wouldn’t have anyone capable of playing either middle infield spot besides Francisco Lindor and McNeil. Vientos can’t be his replacement because the Mets need a backup middle infielder. Luisangel Acuña hasn’t performed to warrant a call up, either.
Iglesias will very clearly be a better fielder than Wendle, and he will probably be a noticeably better hitter too.
He’s been hitting well in Triple-A too. He’s slashing .294/.341/.494/.835, which is right about average for the International League. This is following a spring training where he hit .282/.317/.436, a .753 OPS. He can still be an average hitter.
We’ve seen David Stearns be willing to cut his losses early on this season, getting rid of Michael Tonkin and moving Adrian Houser to the bullpen. Wendle left Monday night’s game, thought the team didn’t announce a reason. An injury may have made the decision for Stearns. But injury or not, it’s time to do the same with Wendle. Jose Iglesias is clearly the better option.
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