In the days before he leaves Mets camp to join Team Venezuela for the World Baseball Classic, Eduardo Escobar may start learning a new old position: left field.
Apparently, the Venezuelan staff wants to be able to play Escobar out there a little bit if necessary, so it’s up to the Mets to start getting him re-acquainted.
"Escobar is probably gonna play left field tomorrow or in the near future," Mets manager Buck Showalter said Monday before his team’s game with the Cardinals. "Venezuela wants to play him in left field some. Gonna get him a game out there, but it may be on the back field."
Showalter further said Escobar wants to do it but Venezuela hopes it’s only an emergency option, which prompted Buck to joke, "that means he'll play [there]."
Escobar played left field a little bit in his early days in Minnesota, tallying 45 games there from 2013-17, but he hasn’t played the outfield since two emergency mid-game appearances in left in 2017, and he played third base almost exclusively with the Met last year, save two one-inning late-game moves to second.
However, between his infield experience and now possibly re-learning left field, Escobar could gain another level of versatility that would allow the Mets to let rookie top prospect Brett Baty step in at some point in 2023 as the everyday third baseman.
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