Mets' Luisangel Acuna looking to build off strong September in majors
Mets infielder Luisangel Acuna during a spring training workout in Port St. Lucie, Fla., on Thursday Feb. 20, 2025. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — By the time he received a surprise promotion to the major leagues late last season, Luisangel Acuna’s prospect star had started to fade.
Sure, he was an excellent athlete, quite fast and adept defensively — and he had the famous last name. But across a year-plus in the Mets’ farm system, he really hadn’t hit, raising questions within the organization and among observers about his viability as a big-leaguer.
Then opportunity knocked in the form of Francisco Lindor’s back injury. Acuna filled in with what amounted to a spot-on Lindor impression, providing slick fielding and power hitting. He batted .308 with a .966 OPS, six extra-base hits (three home runs) and six RBIs in 14 games — way better than he had performed in Syracuse or Binghamton or anywhere else recently.
It’s not an exaggeration to say the Mets might have missed the postseason if Acuna hadn’t played at such a high level for that hot second.
“To be honest, I can’t really explain it,” Acuna, laughing, said through an interpreter. “I came up here with the same plans, the same approach as I had in the minor leagues. I didn’t try to do anything more or less.”
His performance raised a new question: Who is the real Luisangel Acuna? The guy who often was suffocated by minor-league pitching or the lightning bolt the Mets saw in the majors?
“The real Acuna is a very, very talented player who still has developmental growth needed,” president of baseball operations David Stearns said. “And I don’t know that that has changed from now versus if we were having this conversation on Sept. 8 last year, before he ever got called up. What he experienced last year in September will benefit him, but he’s the same player.”
The Mets, then, seem not to be putting too much stock into the small sample of part of September. Stearns noted in the offseason that Acuna’s debut was “an additional data point” and “we have a significant amount of performance history . . . to really fall back on.” Hundreds of at-bats in the minors are more telling than a few dozen in the majors.
Here’s another data point: Acuna suited up for Cardenales de Lara in the Venezuelan Winter League for the first time and did well. Against pitching that ranges from lower-minors quality to some with big-league experience, Acuna had a .337/.419/.495 slash line with 18 steals in 19 tries, a significant improvement over his swiping attempts last year in the minors.
So important to Acuna was participating in his home country’s offseason competition that shortly after the Mets’ season ended, he sought out manager Carlos Mendoza, who played for (2007-10) and managed (2021-22) Lara. Mendoza put Acuna in touch with Lara leadership and helped him receive approval from the Mets, who actively encouraged it. They wanted him to be exposed to all that that league brings: a playoff-like environment, extra game reps, media attention.
The Mets believe in Acuna enough that they are proactively looking for ways for him to make it back onto the major-league roster. Although Nick Madrigal is the early favorite to win the backup infielder job, Acuna has been learning third base, a position he never played previously.
During a late offseason stopover in the Dominican Republic — as he awaited his visa to return to the United States — Acuna worked out with Mets staff, who he said offered “tips and tricks of the trade every single day.”
As a surehanded middle infielder, Acuna should do just fine at the hot corner.
“Sometimes you gotta attack the ball a little bit more, in some cases the ball is going to come up on you a little bit quicker,” he said. “I think I can do a good job there.”
Stearns is steady on the subject: Good young players need chances in the majors, even if that chance doesn’t start on Opening Day. Acuna figures into the Mets’ 2025 plans.
On the heels of his big fall and big winter, team officials have noticed a more comfortable and confident version of Acuna relative to this time last year, when he was in Mets camp for the first time.
“All it takes is two good weeks to prove [to oneself] that you can do it,” said Eduardo Brizuela, vice president and special assistant to Stearns. “You start walking differently.”
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.
More New York Sports
