How Jared Young can be to the NY Mets what Jake Bauers has turned into for the Brewers

Jake Bauers became one of the most unexpected heroes of the 2026 Milwaukee Brewers season. The well-traveled journeyman finally broke out in his age 30 season. His 26 regular season bombs came with a satisfying .266/.389/.484 slash line. It’s no wonder why his name has already come up as a potential New York Mets free agent target.

Not so fast. Bauers is a one-hit wonder so far. He’s not all that different from Jared Young either. The same age as 31 right now with a few months’ head start on Bauers, it’s difficult to not note the similarities.

Young batted .266/.330/.429 this year in a smaller sample with the Mets. His 2.6% home run rate versus Bauers at 4.5% tell us there is a huge difference in the results. Young did knock 17 doubles in comparison to Bauers who had 22 in more than 200 more plate appearances. What they did in 2026 doesn’t matter much because for the Mets, the focus should be on whether or not Young can closely replicate Bauers’ surge.

Does Jared Young have some Jake Bauers power in him for the Mets next season?

You can probably compare the two for days and not come away with any definitive conclusion. We’re just guessing, not much different than when the Mets first signed Young to a major league contract prior to the 2025 season.

One of the biggest differences between the pair are the strikeouts and walks. Bauers swings more freely but draws more walks. Young puts the bat on the ball and doesn’t whiff a whole lot. The fact both finished with a .266 batting average last season is helpful because we can bypass that number immediately and try to find where the differences were.

A huge contrast between the two was the LA sweet-spot percentage. LA, standing for Launch Angle, had Bauers in the 91st percentile. Young was in the 12th percentile.

The pair definitely had completely different success rates against the pitchers they saw. Bauers slugged .550 against the four-seamer. Young dominated against curveballs with a .559 slugging percentage.

Meanwhile, Young had a .400 slugging against four-seamers with Bauers at a ridiculously low .244 against curveballs. Young’s best pitch to hit was Bauers’ worst.

Hitting more balls harder is one clear way for Young to catch Bauers. It’s always possible. In 2025, Bauers had a 46% hard-hit rate. Young was at 46.8% in 2026. Bauers jumped it up to 52.5% this past season. The results speak for themselves. He went from a part-time player with a .752 OPS to a monster .874 OPS season.

It will be interesting to see how much the Mets try to change Young or let him be. The lack of strikeouts are welcomed. Young cut down from a 34% K rate in his limited 2025 action to the better than league average 18.4% this past year.

What kind of hitter is it the Mets actually want Young to be? There probably is some trade off. More walks make increased strikeouts semi-acceptable. They probably desire a little more pop out of their first baseman.

Knowing exactly what type of hitter Young will be next year is impossible to predict because of how unexpectedly productive he was this past year for the Mets. The hope, of course, is to be something more like Bauers without totally annihilating the things Young does well. There’s a value to bat-on-ball. There’s also pride in smacking home runs and drawing walks at a rate even if it means a loss in other departments.

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