Brett Baty Beginning To Find A Rhythm At The Plate

The New York Mets may have lost Saturday’s matchup with the San Francisco Giants, but even in defeat, Brett Baty shined offensively. He finished the day going 2-for-4 with an RBI, his first multi-hit game of the season. Each of these hits were of the hard hit variety, specifically, 105.6 mph off the bat in the eighth inning and 97.6 mph in the ninth inning. A very encouraging theme we have seen from Baty thus far this year.

Baty, MMO’s number two prospect in the Mets’ system, is here to stay at the major-league level. His 4-for-17 (.235 average) success rate with a .513 OPS may not jump off the page, but he has had a few hits robbed by great defense. This is evident by an xBA of .265, indicating the aforementioned bad luck. As the season goes on, some of those hard-hit balls (absurd 50 percent hard-hit rate thus far) will turn into hits for the third baseman.

The 23-year-old has been questioned for his defense at the hot corner, but that has been much improved in his brief time with the Mets. Despite making an error in Saturday’s game, he has committed just one error in 35 innings and owns an outs above average rating of 2. While that may not be a huge sample size, it does show what may be to come for him as a defender. Baty worked on that part of his game all offseason, and that effort is really starting to pay off.

Baty is getting a majority of the starts at third base, although, Eduardo Escobar has started against a few left-handed pitchers in the last week or so. Expect more of that on Buck Showalter’s lineup card moving forward, given the way the pair has performed as of late it makes sense for the time being. Regardless, all Mets’ fans and the organization itself should be encouraged by how Baty has looked thus far, even though he has not quite been getting the full results yet.