PORT ST. LUCIE — Michael Conforto aced a significant part of his initiation last summer, but that won’t guarantee him an everyday job with the Mets in 2016.
To this point the Mets view the outfielder, who turns 23 in two weeks, as a sweet-swinging lefty bat for the lineup. To reach his full potential, Conforto will not only have to demonstrate he can hit left-handed pitching, but also show team brass he’s capable of excelling in other areas.
“I just want to become a more complete player,” Conforto said Wednesday, the official reporting date for pitchers and catchers at spring training. “There’s some things I need to lock down a little bit on defense and some things I need to learn on the bases and obviously there’s some things I need to learn at the plate, so I want to be a more complete player, a smarter player and hanging around these guys is going to help me do that.”
Over the final two-plus months of last season, Conforto — who was promoted to the major leagues directly from Double-A Binghamton — had a solid .270/.335/.506 slash line with nine homers and 26 RBIs. The highlights included two home runs in Game 4 of the World Series and a homer against Zack Greinke in Game 2 of the NL Division Series at Dodger Stadium.
Even with Yoenis Cespedes back in the lineup and the Mets hopeful of finding spots for Juan Lagares, the organizational goal is to make Conforto — who had only 14 at-bats against lefties last season — a full-time player.
“We hope he can build on his excellent rookie season,” general manager Sandy Alderson said. “We expect him to be a significant contributor this year.”
Conforto returned home to Oregon over the winter and put much of his focus on improving defensively. That meant also working in right field, a position he could occasionally play this season when Curtis Granderson sits against lefties.
The last time Conforto played right field was as a freshman at Oregon State.
“I’m going to get a chance to work on that this spring training, and that was one of the things I worked on when I was back home,” Conforto said. “Just making sure I got reps from both sides in the outfield and being comfortable.”
After watching pitchers begin pounding the outside corner against him last year, Conforto said he realized it was also time to tinker with his swing.
“I want to be able to cover more of the plate and be more comfortable on some pitches in situations that I struggled with in the past,” he said. “It was a real productive offseason, but at the same time I’m happy to be back.”
Conforto earned raves from the Mets’ veterans last season for the manner in which he conducted himself, as a confident but not cocky rookie.
The veteran Granderson was among those from whom Conforto sought advice.
“[Granderson] has been very consistent, with not even baseball, just all kinds of stuff, being a young guy in the big leagues,” Conforto said. “During games, him being the leadoff guy, he’ll come back and tell me what to look for and what not to look for and what the guy has got going that day and he’s been real helpful making the process really easy for me. I’m excited to see him and get that process going again.”
Conforto potentially could lose at-bats because of Cespedes’ return, but said he is glad the slugger signed with the Mets.
“We felt that we had a good group coming back before we signed Cespedes back, and we’re excited about that,” Conforto said. “Obviously the pitching is incredible and the lineup was solid, but with Cespedes coming back, that’s pretty exciting.”