Mets fans have no choice but to risk getting hurt again by Brett Baty
It’s hard not to buy Brett Baty stock.
Once upon a time, Brett Baty was seen as one of the top prospects in all of baseball, and as a future cornerstone for the New York Mets. He was given an enormous opportunity to play regularly in 2023, but he had a very subpar .598 OPS in 389 plate appearances while also looking out of place at third base defensively. He performed better in the field in 2024 and even improved a bit at the dish, but as his .633 OPS would suggest in the 50 MLB games he appeared in, he still wasn’t good enough offensively to justify giving playing time.
While Baty was struggling to prove himself at the MLB level in 2024, Mark Vientos ran with his first real opportunity to play regularly and performed like an All-Star. With his performance, Vientos cemented himself as New York’s third baseman in 2025 and beyond, leaving Baty without a spot.
Given the fact that he had struggled mightily in a fairly large sample in the majors and had lost his third base job, Baty entered spring training with more to prove than just about anybody in the organization. At first, he was in the running for the team’s final bench spot, but when Jeff McNeil went down with an oblique injury, opportunity struck for Baty to fight for the team’s second base job.
His performance in spring training has not only almost certainly won him that job, but he might get Mets fans to believe in him again.
