Reese Kaplan -- A Mets Prospect Still Truckin' His Way to MLB

As the Grateful Dead song refrain reminds us, “What a long strange trip it’s been.”  This lyric comes to mind regarding baseball prospects who do what’s necessary to get drafted and begin the arduous climb from high school to college to small towns in the middle of nowhere with low level minor league franchises, to bigger towns as the ranking level of the leagues begins to suggest a higher level of performance and then finally when the player puts on the uniform of his major league employer when he crosses from the big league dugout to the internationally broadcast game that represents the culmination of the many years struggling to get there.

Sometimes these adventures are fraught with routine development challenges, injuries and either success or failure overcoming the obstacles to advancement.  Other times the player in question turns out not to be able to deserve promotion to the next level due to hitting, fielding or other problems which then require the player to adapt a professional makeover to change what brought him to professional baseball in the first place.  Jacob deGrom is a perfect example as an infielder who didn’t cut it to meet expectations of the scouts who saw and recommended drafting him, so he became a pitcher.  The rest, as they say, is history.

For the New York Mets right now one of the handful of players on the front radar started off his minor league career unimpressively.  In this first year in the pros he hit a paltry .234 but in 188 ABs he hit 7 HRs and drove in 33 runs.  Triple those numbers and it suggests a hitter with better than average power and near 100 RBI run production ability. 

In the following year he didn’t play at all as the minor leagues were shut down during the 2020 Covid crisis.

However, when 2021 arrived he played for two teams and in 332 ABs he hit 12 HRs and drove in 56 while the batting average jumped up to .292.  Now that’s a sign the first year numbers were not off track for his ability to put the ball over the fence and to become a middle of the order hitter.

Come 2022 he advanced all the way up to AAA and again showed that he was indeed a solid minor league hitter.  While the run production numbers were down a bit with 19 HRs and 60 RBIs over the course of a combined 362 ABs, the batting average climbed again to .315.  That output earned him a late cup of coffee with the Mets but he didn’t seem ready for this new level of competition.

In 2023 his minor league AAA resume was puzzling.  The batting average once again was an impressive .298 with 10 HRs and 31 RBIs over the course of 104 ABs.  Quintuple those numbers to represent a full season and he would be in the history books.  Instead, he spent 353 ABs with the Amazins, but the batting average and run production numbers didn’t measure up.  He ended the year with a .213 average, 9 HRs and 34 RBIs.  More alarmingly was his 104 strikeouts which would have put him on a pace for about 180 on a full season.

Then came 2024 where he was handed the third base job out of Spring Training and once again he couldn’t make that final level of adjustment.  He ended his major league season with a .229 average (which was a slight improvement) but the power and run production numbers fell off completely.  In AAA where he spent the rest of the year he hit a much more modest .252 but hit 16 HRs and drove in 45 in just 230 ABs.  On the plus sside the strikeouts were down to a much more reasonable 57 during that stretch. 

The player, of course, is the former top prospect and now mystery man Brett Baty.  The 2025 Spring Training season is going to begin next month and once again no one is sure whether or not Baty can ever make the final adjustments necessary to become a major league regular player.  Obviously the home run and RBI numbers have been there way more often than not, though the descending batting average is a bit troubling.  Will he play at a competent major league level or will he be labeled forever as a AAAA player?

Right now everyone is well aware of the Mets’ collective need to improve the offense.  With no Pete Alonso, no Jose Iglesias, subpar years on the books from Jeff McNeil, Starling Marte, Brandon Nimmo and Francisco Alvarez no one can even commit definitively to who will play which position and who will be on the bench or in a new uniform.  DH, 1st base, 3rd base and center field all suggest vacancies that need to be addressed. 

During this seemingly endless off season nothing was done in terms of trading Baty elsewhere just as nothing has been done regarding shoring up 1st base nor finding a DH.  Through all this uncertainty, what would it be like if Baty could deliver a .250 average for a full season with 25 HRs and 80 RBIs?  Would that level of production be wildly optimistic and not tethered to past history, or do we look at other major leaguers who struggled during their first taste of the big leagues who later proved they were better than their first impression.

There was a third baseman who during his first two years in the majors had 400 ABs and delivered a .197 average with 19 HRs and 56 RBIs.  Ouch.  Of course, he made it to the Hall of Fame.  You all remember Mike Schmidt, right?

No one is suggesting Baty has that kind of potential, but the Phillies didn’t give up on a poor performer during the years 1972 and 1973.  They were rewarded for their patience.  Could the Mets benefit on a lesser scale but with a parallel approach?  We may find out unless the corner infield positions and DH roles are resolved in the next two weeks.