3 NY Mets players giving the team no choice but to add them to the Opening Day roster

Spring training always has surprise performers. Sometimes, those strong performances can lead a player who was originally on the outside looking in to end up on the team’s Opening Day roster. The New York Mets have had their share of players perform exceptionally well so far into spring training. However, these three players, in particular, are performing so well that they’re leaving the Mets with almost no other choice other than to open the year with them on the active 26-man roster.

1) Brett Baty

Brett Baty’s Major League career hasn’t gone as planned. Originally a first-round pick by the Mets in 2019, Baty quickly ascended to prospect stardom, even ranking as high as the 17th-best prospect in baseball by Baseball Prospectus. However, Baty has yet to put together anything worthwhile in the Major Leagues.

Baty owns just a .215/.282/.325 triple-slash through 602 plate appearances. He has struck out 26.4% of the time with a 7.8% walk rate. Baty has only hit 15 homers with a .111 isolated slugging percentage. His defense at the hot corner hasn’t been anything to be proud of either, with a -9 defensive runs saved and -3 outs above average in 1281.2 innings. Overall, he's been about a replacement level player with -0.1 fWAR, and an even worse -0.7 bWAR.

But Baty is doing everything he can to avoid getting sent to Triple-A to open 2025. It has only been seven games and 20 plate appearances, but the former top prospect has eight hits. Three have gone for extra bases, including two homers and a double. Baty has punished the ball, posting an 88.4 MPH exit velocity and 11.8% barrel rate in the small sample size. He has also a pair of walks with just a single strikeout.

The Mets are going to try and improve Baty’s versatility as well. He started at second base on Tuesday, and manager Carlos Mendoza hasn’t ruled out Baty trying his hand at shortstop. If Baty can show he can handle both positions up the middle while continuing his tear pitching up throughout the rest of spring training, the Mets should gladly hand him a chance to prove himself again. Baty has one option remaining, so the Mets would also like to be able to hold off on using that final option.