Mets demote Brett Baty to Triple-A Syracuse

For the last few days, the Mets had been kicking around the idea of sending Brett Baty to Triple-A Syracuse. On Monday, as they returned to Citi Field to open a 10-game homestand, they demoted Baty for what manager Buck Showalter more than once called a timeout.

“Kind of take a breath,” Showalter said before the Mets hosted the Cubs. “As much a mental, emotional [move] and just let him kind of work on some things without the day-to-day [scrutiny].’’

Baty’s season has been a struggle since he was recalled on April 16 after starting the season smoking-hot at Syracuse (.400, five home runs, 1.386 OPS in nine games).

The Mets moved aside veteran Eduardo Escobar to make Baty the everyday third baseman and eventually traded Escobar to the Angels. But the 23-year-old Baty, after hitting .333 in his first 10 games, could never find the kind of consistent pop he showed in the minors.

In 278 big-league at-bats, Baty hit .216 with seven home runs, 27 RBIs, a .620 OPS and a 73 OPS-plus (100 is league average).

And Baty’s defense left much to be desired (nine errors, minus-eight defensive runs saved, according to The Fielding Bible).

Showalter and general manager Billy Eppler delivered the news to Baty before Monday’s game.

The Mets also placed Starling Marte on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to Sunday, with a right groin strain and called up infielder Jonathan Arauz and outfielder Abraham Almonte.

Danny Mendick started at third base against Cubs lefthander Drew Smyly with Mark Vientos as the designated hitter. Vientos also will see time at third as long as Baty is in the minors.

How long will that be?

“You don’t say, ‘You’re going to be back in X number of days after X number of at-bats,’  ” Showalter said. “You don’t know. He controls it. But I think Brett, we know [it’s] in the best interest of his development. I’ve had a lot of young players that have gone through this without doing a lot of name-dropping. I think it’s in his best interest to go down, take a breath and get back to what he was doing when he first got here. It’s a tough place to do that.”

The Mets still have high hopes for Baty, their first-round pick (12th overall) in the 2019 draft.

“Just because something’s delayed doesn’t mean it’s denied,” Showalter said. “I’m not going to start rattling off all these names, multiple really good players with long major-league careers that I’ve had that went through this, sometimes two or three times. So just hopefully a temporary thing. But I told him he controls it. It’s up to him. He’s got a good attitude about it. In fact, a lot of good give-and- take, back-and-forth.”

There’s no guarantee Baty will come back up at all this season, but the Mets don’t really have a viable Plan B for 2024.

“Two weeks after the season’s over, three weeks, sometimes guys kind of step back and everything slows down,” Showalter said. “It’s real fast for him right now. And like I told him, I just want him to take a breath and take a timeout .  .  .

“I’d be surprised if he doesn’t take a little time, two or three days, and all of a sudden kind of get back to who he is and who he’s capable of being. He’s got a chance to be a part of a lot of good baseball and be a real contributor. Very mature. He gets it.”

Showalter said Marte, who had surgery on both groins in the offseason, just isn’t able to perform the way he expects. It wouldn’t be shocking for the Mets to shut down Marte, 34, for the rest of the season. He is signed for two more seasons at $20.75 million per.

“I don’t think he’s 100%,” Showalter said. “I think we need to try to get our arms around getting him back to that again.”

By Anthony Rieber

anthony.rieber@newsday.comAnthonyRieber

Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.