Thursday Thought: 3 early observations from Brett Baty's debut

The New York Mets called up heralded prospect Brett Baty and he made his Major League debut last night. Injuries to Eduardo Escobar and Luis Guillorme opened the door for Baty, who crushed it in AA and recently got promoted to AAA. 

Here’s three takeaways I had from watching Brett Baty’s Mets debut.

1) The swing is legit

Baty started his career with a bang, pulling a curveball to right for a homer. Baty was in AA about a week ago, and with only a handful of games in AAA, there’s going to be a jump in the quality of breaking stuff he sees. The ability to hit breaking stuff is incredibly important in the Majors, so this is a great sign that he was able to keep his hands back and put the barrel on the ball. 

He followed that up later with a hard hit ball into the shortstop hole off a lefty, which was fielded by Swanson for a fielder’s choice after Marc Canha got tagged. That was the third hardest ball a left-handed Met hitter has hit off a left-handed pitcher in the Statcast Era. 

Combine the ability to hit breaking balls, the ability to go the other way, and the ability to hit lefties, and the Mets might have something special here.

2) He likes to swing early in the count, but showed discipline

In his first at-bat, he layed off the first-pitch curveball in the dirt, then crushed the hanger. In his second at-bat, he swung at the first pitch and hit a scorcher. In his third at-bat, strike one was called, then he layed off a low curveball, and then he hit the 1-1 fastball on the ground. The Mets have had this ‘selective aggressiveness’ mentality across the organization for years, and he definitely showed that.

3) He’s composed

Baty didn’t really show a ton of emotion last night. He had a cool moment with his family in which they swapped hand gestures between second and third as he rounded the bases on his homer, and again in front of the Mets’ dugout after. That was a really awesome moment. Other than that, he was very calm and collected. The next test for him will be his Citi Field debut next week.

I also thought he handled the media well. He showed a team-first mentality in both and he didn’t look flustered in front of the cameras. In New York, that matters.

Last night was the start of what looks like a promising career for Brett Baty. The swing is beautiful, the discipline is there, and composure is beyond his years. I like what I see from him, and I’m excited to watch what he can do going forward.