Mets top prospect Jett Williams will play second base, too

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — The first thing Jett Williams did on his first day at his first major-league spring training was meet with the new bosses.

Williams, 20 years old and the Mets’ top prospect, dropped his bags at his locker inside Clover Park on Friday morning and wandered into Carlos Mendoza’s office, where the manager was waiting for him with president of baseball operations David Stearns.

Among the items touched on in what was largely a nice-to-meet-you, happy-to-be-here session: The Mets plan to try Williams, naturally a shortstop, at second base this year.

It won’t happen immediately. While he is in camp, he’ll stick to short and centerfield in games, according to Mendoza.

But come the regular season, Williams said, they’ll mix in second base, where he already has been working out.

“It’s easier,” Williams told Newsday. “Just because everything is shorter. I’m very comfortable over there. I’ve practiced it for a couple of weeks in minicamp [in Port St. Lucie recently] and everything. It’s just the same thing. Just go play baseball.”

Williams sometimes played second base in high school before the Mets chose him in the first round of the draft in 2022. Last year, his first full season of pro ball, he split time between shortstop and centerfield.

“Wherever they put me, I’ll play,” he said. “I know they have [Francisco] Lindor for another good seven or eight years. Honestly, I try not to worry about those things. Just go out there and play and hope for the best . . . I don’t really care. Whatever gets me to the big leagues the fastest.”

Lindor is under contract through 2031, so Williams is the latest in a series of shortstops who have ventured or will venture elsewhere defensively for the Mets.

That began with Andres Gimenez, a highly regarded defender in his time with the organization, which ended when he became part of the package the Mets sent to Cleveland to acquire Lindor three years ago.

Then there was Ronny Mauricio, who played mostly second base in his taste of the majors last season.

Now here comes Williams, who reached Double-A Binghamton at the end of last season and is not shy about sharing that his 2024 goal is to reach the majors.

Known for his excellent command of the strike zone, he batted .263 with a .425 OBP and .451 slugging percentage across three levels in 2023. He stole 45 bases (at an 87% success rate) and hit 13 homers and 43 extra-base hits.

The Mets named him their minor-league player of the year.

“What sticks out is his ability to slow the game down,” Mendoza said. “He plays poised. He’s got a very good understanding of the situation and for a player his age, he’s pretty advanced.”

With that production has come even more hype. Williams was ranked as the top prospect in the Mets’ farm system by Baseball America (who had him at No. 30 overall), MLB Pipeline (No. 45) and Baseball Prospectus (No. 23).

That is flattering stuff, but Williams knows he hasn’t really accomplished anything yet.

He joked about being assigned No. 90, the sort of uniform number given to those who won’t be breaking camp with the team. His locker is of the auxiliary variety, an extra cubby brought in and stuck in the middle of the room, to be removed when needed.

Asked whose brain he most wants to pick over the coming weeks, he said “everybody.”

“There’s a great group of guys in here that we can all learn from — especially being me, just a young prospect,” he said. “I think that anybody who has big-league time here, they all have a valuable role. They’ve already had the experience of going through the minors, playing in their first big-league [games]. I’m looking forward to talking to everybody.”

A lesson he’ll carry from his brief professional experience to date: the importance of taking care of his body.

As a high school senior, he played 50 games, he said. Last year, more than 120.

That is a huge jump. He is hoping for another.

“The biggest thing was staying healthy the whole year and not getting hurt,” he said. “I felt a little bit tired, but I think I took care of my body the best I could. Learning from what I did last year and taking it to this year, trying to play as many games as possible, just in case. If there is a chance I do get called up, I’m probably going to play more games than I did last year.”

By Tim Healey

timothy.healey@newsday.com@timbhealey

Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.