The New York Mets head into the 2023 offseason with some semblance of hope. What looked like a lost year on the surface saw the Mets get long looks at several top prospects and acquire many others at the trade deadline. This Mets team that looked like it didn't have much of a future now has one that can be seen as very bright led by David Stearns.
At different points of this season, it felt like these three players would be key to the 2024 bounceback. Now that the campaign has come to an end, Mets fans aren't quite as excited about their futures with the organization.
1) Brett Baty
Brett Baty was a player Mets fans were clammoring for from day one. He was red-hot in the spring and that carried over to AAA Syracuse. The Mets finally called him up in mid-April but he never quite got it going.
Baty took the everyday role at third base from a struggling Eduardo Escobar but that had more to do with the latter than the former. He got 86 games of mostly consistent playing time from April to the beginning of August but he'd post a .620 OPS with shoddy defense. The struggles got so bad to the point where he was sent back to Syracuse to finish the month of August.
Baty would return in September but again he'd just look overmatched at the plate. He had a .514 OPS in the month and he struck out 23 times in 75 at-bats. We saw a couple of flashes like the home run he hit against Craig Kimbrel in Philadelphia, but there was a lot more bad than good. His .212/.275/.323 slash line with nine home runs and a 65 OPS+ tells the story.
There's still hope for Baty who's only one year removed from being considered one of the best prospects in baseball, but it's a lot harder to believe after 108 games of him being well below average at the plate and in the field.