Who is Brett Baty?

Brett Baty was drafted 12th overall by the Mets in 2019 and is now New York's No. 2 prospect, the No. 1 third-base prospect and the No. 19 prospect in baseball according to MLB Pipeline.

After making his MLB debut with the Mets last season, Baty's back with the club, as MLB.com's Mark Feinsand reported on Sunday that the Mets are planning to call up Baty. He was hitting .400 with five home runs and 15 RBIs in nine games at Triple-A Syracuse prior to being called up.

Here's what you need to know about the lefty-slugging third baseman from Texas.

FAST FACTS
MLB organization: Mets
Birthdate: Nov. 13, 1999 (Age 23 in 2023)
Primary position: 3B
Height/weight: 6-foot-3, 210 lbs.
Bats/throws: Left/right
Hometown: Austin, Texas
School(s): Lake Travis (Texas) HS
Drafted: 12th overall, 2019 (by NYM)

He broke onto the MLB scene last season

On Aug. 17, 2022 Baty introduced himself to the baseball world when he became the fifth Mets player to homer in his first career at-bat when he launched a Jake Odorizzi curveball into the right-field bleachers at Truist Park.

In addition to joining Mike Jacobs, Kazuo Matsui, Mike Fitzgerald and Benny Ayala as the only Mets to open their careers with a homer in their first at-bat, Baty smoked a 113 mph line drive off left-hander Tyler Matzek in his debut, delivering the hardest-hit ball by a Met in a left-on-left matchup since 2016. On the first defensive play in his career, he made a running throw to nab Ronald Acuña Jr. at first.

That debut proved to be the high point of his first stint in the Majors, as he sustained a torn UCL in his right thumb that required surgery and ended his season. In all, he hit .184/.244/.342 with two homers and five RBIs in 11 Major League games.

He made the All-Star Futures Game

Baty represented the Mets at the 2021 Futures Game at Coors Field and was part of a loaded roster that included the likes of Adley Rutschman, Spencer Torkelson, Jarred Kelenic, Julio Rodríguez, Bobby Witt Jr., CJ Abrams and Jasson Dominguez.

At the time he was named to the Futures Game, Baty was hitting .318 with six home runs, 32 RBIs and a .951 OPS in 42 games for the High-A Brooklyn Cyclones.

And just before the Futures Game, the Mets announced that Baty was being promoted to Double-A Binghamton.

He wants to be like David Wright

David Wright is the exemplar for any Mets prospect to aspire to -- especially a third baseman like Baty. And Baty has said from Day 1 that he wants to follow in the Mets captain's footsteps.

"It makes me feel so great to know that David Wright had so much success, and to know that maybe someday [I might] be like him," Baty said when the Mets drafted him. "I love New York. The city, the atmosphere around it, it’s just an awesome city and I can’t wait to get here."

Baty was the first third baseman the Mets drafted in the first round since they took Wright with the 38th overall pick back in 2001. If he can even approach what Wright -- a seven-time All-Star and two-time Gold Glover and Silver Slugger at the position -- accomplished in Flushing, Mets fans will love Baty.

But he could have been like Baker Mayfield

The area of Texas where Baty went to high school is a football factory -- and specifically, a quarterback factory. Baty was almost one of them.

He went to the same high school, Lake Travis, as Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield. His high school's rival was Westlake, where Drew Brees and Nick Foles both went.

And Baty? If you ask his baseball coach, he could have been Lake Travis' No. 1 quarterback his senior year had he not decided to focus on baseball instead.

His first time at Citi Field, he put on a show

When the Mets introduced a 19-year-old Baty at Citi Field in June 2019, he put on a prodigious power display in batting practice.

Baty hit home runs to the Mets home run apple in center field, to the Shea Bridge in right-center and to the very upper reaches of the upper deck in right field. With any luck, a sign of things to come.

He models parts of his swing after two lefty mashers

If you ask Baty where he got his sweet lefty swing, he'll tell you that he tries to do his own thing at the plate … but that his swing contains elements from a pair of well-known sluggers.

"There's definitely some pieces of my swing that resemble some other hitters -- like Freddie Freeman or Adam Dunn."

You could do a lot worse than emulating Freeman, the 2020 National League MVP and a career .298 hitter and .508 slugger; or Dunn, a fellow Texan and University of Texas commit like Baty was, who mashed 462 career home runs and had six 40-homer seasons.

He saved all his old home run balls

From T-ball through high school ball at Lake Travis, Baty saved every home run ball he ever hit. That tradition started from his very first at-bat in youth baseball.

“They say nobody ever hits a home run in T-ball because the ball’s just sitting there and you have to supply all the power," Baty told the Austin American-Statesman in 2019. "Well, my first at-bat, I took one over the fence."

His mom, Leslie, went and got it … that one, and the rest of them, as Baty kept hitting homers. The Baty family keeps the balls, over 100 of them with dates and details of the home runs, in glass cases at home.

He was meant to be a Met

Baty's nickname as a kid? It was "Brett the Met."

Yes, really. It's because he played for a T-ball team named the Mets. Baty revealed the fun fact to Mets fans after the Mets drafted him.