Mets' Brett Baty has steady spring training debut at first base

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Brett Baty had to resist the urge to scamper toward a baseball hit toward his right.

“Marcus [Semien] is right behind me,” he reminded himself Saturday afternoon. “I need to get my butt to first base.”

And get his butt to first base he did.

It was the third inning of the Mets’ 3-2 loss to the Nationals at Clover Park, and Baty, making his professional debut at first base, illustrated his thinking process in real time.

James Wood hit a grounder to his right and Baty took a few steps in that direction before realizing that he was not, in fact, a second baseman. He high-tailed it back to the bag, received the throw from Semien and laughed at himself along the way.

“There are just some things that you never see in practice until you go out there and do it in a game,” Baty said. “I was talking to Kai [Correa, the bench coach] and Mendy [Carlos Mendoza] about some of the plays out there [where] I felt I wanted to go get the ball. That’s just how I’ve always been. At third base, you go get the ball — every ball that you can go get. At second base, it’s the same thing . . .

“No mistakes,” he said of his performance, “but it didn’t look pretty, either.”

It didn’t look particularly bad, though. Baty’s natural athleticism was apparent throughout his four innings in the field. He held runners on, corralled pickoff throws and was where he needed to be when he needed to be there.

Mendoza deemed his performance as “fine” — which is a pretty good launching point.

“Overall, it was a good day,” Mendoza said. “He’s very athletic.”

It’s the latest chapter in Baty’s evolution into a super-utility player — a role vacated by Jeff McNeil, who was traded to the A’s. He’s a natural third baseman, but every new season seems to entail breaking in a new glove.

The Mets got him outfield reps beginning in 2021, and when he began to get regular major-league playing time in 2023, there was interest in transitioning him to leftfield, though it didn’t go far.

By 2024, the Mets were experimenting with him at second base, and by the end of 2025, he was playing there regularly.

When Pete Alonso opted out of his contract, first base became a real possibility. When the Mets lost out on the Kyle Tucker sweepstakes, leftfield became an option. When Juan Soto said he would move to left, Baty was penciled in as the rightfielder.

The plan is forever fluid, and Baty has to be fluid, too. Jorge Polanco and Mark Vientos are expected to man first base as well, and Jared Young is an option. It’s an outright melee in right, where Baty, Tyrone Taylor, Carson Benge and MJ Melendez are options.

But Baty has taken to his role(s) with aplomb. He started work at first base in the offseason, but the training, as evidenced by that ball to his right, is mental as much as it is physical.

As evidenced by that play, he seems to be having fun with the various challenges. A hamstring tweak a few weeks ago led the Mets to take it slow with his outfield reps — he got some for the first time Friday — but he sounded almost charmed by the new experience. (Baty has never played right and has played one major-league inning in left.)

“I feel like a football receiver out there,” he said. “I think it’s really fun to run around out there, catch fly balls, show off the arm and stuff like that. I think you can showcase athleticism out there and I like it.”

He’s a quick enough study: Baty’s defense at third base showed significant progress beginning in 2024, when he went from registering -4 outs above average to two outs above average. He was perfectly acceptable at second base, and though he’ll see some time at both positions, Mendoza said that ideally, they’d like to keep their focus on the right side of the field in spring training.

That said, super-utility is a mentally taxing role, and not just because players have to adapt quickly to wildly different positions. When defense isn’t second nature, offense can struggle, and Baty last year came into his own at the plate.

After compiling a .229/.306/.327 slash line in 2024, he took off in the latter half of last season, batting .289 from June 23 on and hitting 10 of his 18 homers in that stretch. He also went from being a platoon player to being trusted against lefthanded pitchers, posting nearly even splits for the first time in his major-league career.

Maintaining that progress while putting him in the best position to succeed defensively requires “a lot” of active communication, Mendoza said.

“We have to make sure that we’re communicating with him on a daily basis,” he said. “If we’re thinking about potentially playing him in right, [we’re] making sure he gets the reps there a couple days in advance. The throwing is different. If we’re thinking about playing him at third [or] second base, there’s a lot of communication . . . It’s not easy, but he’s embracing the opportunity.”

Baty knows it won’t always be smooth, but he thought back to what Vientos told him when Vientos struggled defensively.

“He said it’s two separate parts of the game,” Baty recalled. “If he makes a mistake on defense or if he strikes out on offense, he’s flushing that. He’s got some other way to contribute to a team win that night on the other side of the ball, too. I really respected him when he said that and I’ve been trying to implement that as well.”

While he does that, he’ll continue adding to his collection of skills, roles . . . and gloves.

“A lot,” he said when asked about the number of gloves in his locker. “A lot, yeah.”

By Laura Albanese

laura.albanese@newsday.com@AlbaneseLaura

Laura Albanese is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. She's been covering MLB since 2014 after starting at Newsday as an intern seven years earlier.