When Mets GM Billy Eppler was visiting Syracuse to watch the Triple A team during a recent stretch of games, everyone's spidey senses were tingling as to whether a call up was imminent. Sure enough, on Sunday the Mets announced that they are calling up Brett Baty to the big club. Baty will most likely join the Mets in Los Angeles on Monday, and it will probably be in place of Jose Butto, who starts today for the Mets against Oakland.
Baty's performance this season for Syracuse gave the Mets no choice. In 42 plate appearances over nine games, Baty was hitting .400 with an OPS of 1.386 with five home runs and 15 RBI. He was seemingly hitting a home run every other day, and to do it while Eduardo Escobar was struggling in the majors, it was impossible to ignore what Baty was doing.
Eppler had said that Baty, along with other prospects, needed to hit certain benchmarks to earn a call up. Five homers in nine games should be an obvious one. Others may not have been so obvious. But I'm sure with these top prospects, the Mets want to make sure that once they're up, they don't go back down. Baty's numbers in Syracuse showed that there was no reason to keep him down much longer, and the video game numbers may have shown that he was bored with Triple A pitching. If that's the case, then there was no reason to keep him in Syracuse any longer.