Mets miss golden opportunity to promote top prospect after Starling Marte injury

The good vibes that have been developing in Queens over the last couple of weeks just took a bit of a hit as one of the New York Mets' hottest hitters, Starling Marte, has been placed on the injured list with a right knee injury.

Marte had been playing extremely well prior to this injury, slashing .351/.413/.509 in his last 16 games, providing a spark in the middle of their lineup.

Replacing Marte is not a move many teams could easily make, and the Mets are included in that. They chose to promote Ben Gamel who, to his credit, has played great in Triple-A. While Gamel was deserving of a promotion, the Mets still missed out on giving one of the top prospects in their organization, Luisangel Acuña, a look.

Mets should have given Luisangel Acuña a chance in the majors

Gamel has eight years of MLB experience, has played all three outfield positions in the minors this season, and has a .962 OPS for Triple-A Syracuse this season. While his numbers look better than Acuña's, giving their No. 5 prospect according to MLB Pipeline a chance would've made sense for a number of reasons.

First, while Acuña's full-season numbers aren't nearly as good as Gamel's, he's been red-hot of late. He's slashing .312/.369/.416 in the month of June, recording at least one hit in 14 of the 18 games he's played. He has multiple hits in seven of those games. He's starting to really put it together at the level closest to MLB and is a second baseman.

The Mets have gotten virtually nothing from Jeff McNeil offensively all season long. Jose Iglesias has done a great job as a platoon partner in the interim, but he's not an everyday solution. The Mets can play Acuña at the keystone regularly while letting McNeil move out to right field against right-handed pitching with Tyrone Taylor slotting in against southpaws.

Instead, the Mets chose to add Gamel, a player who will presumably slot behind both Taylor and DJ Stewart on the right field depth chart. An argument can (and should) be made that Gamel should be up with the MLB team over Stewart, but it certainly doesn't make much sense to carry both Gamel and Stewart, two bench outfielders who hit left-handed. Both are on the bench for Tuesday's game against the Yankees.

Acuña hasn't torn Triple-A pitching up all season but he certainly has lately, and can provide a spark in the wake of Marte's absence. Worst case scenario, if it didn't work out, they could've sent him back down. If it did work, they might've had their second baseman not only for this season, but for the foreseeable future. He has more upside than Gamel, a player who appeared in just six MLB games last season and has a career 96 OPS+, and deserves a look sooner rather than later.