His first impression at the hot corner earned positive reviews. Making an appearance Monday on the New York Post’s “The Show” podcast with MLB Network insiders Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman, Mets manager Carlos Mendoza was pleased with his initial look at his third baseman.
“We’re looking at a guy that has played shortstop his whole career — watching him today 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,’” Mendoza said.
“There’s no question we’re asking two guys to learn some new positions,” Stearns said last week. “We’re also asking two guys with very high baseball aptitudes who are good athletes who have spent the majority of their careers at the shortstop position to learn new positions on the dirt. There are going to be learning curves. We’re going to make mistakes. I also have a high degree of confidence that both those players are going to be able to figure it out and play their positions at a pretty high level.”
