2019 MLB Draft: Mets select Brett Baty with 12th overall pick

With the 12th pick in the draft, the Mets have selected infielder Brett Baty from Lake Travis High School in Travis County, Texas. In mock drafts, Baty was projected to go 26th by MLB.com, 28th by ESPN and 17th by Baseball America.

At 19 years old, Baty is in an interesting spot as an overaged high-schooler — he’s dominating the competition right now, but then again, he should be. The 6-foot-3, 218-pounder flashes impressive power from the left side of the plate, and as opposed to the hitters who have “power potential” if they grow into their bodies, Baty already has a muscular, developed frame, and he’s already begun to show off his tremendous power-hitting ability at the prep level. While he obviously has a long way to go in developing a refined hitting approach, seeing as he hasn’t played above the high-school level, there is confidence among some evaluators that he’ll end up being a good contact hitter at the major-league level as well.

The extent of Baty’s ability to make an impact as a major leaguer will be dependent on whether he sticks at his current position of third base or ends up moving to first. While it seemed to be a given earlier in his high school career that he’d end up as a first baseman at some point, he’s now showing more signs that he’ll be able to stay at third base for the long haul — he’s improved his body composition and has become more athletic, and he has a strong arm that should aid him at the hot corner. As a left-handed hitting third baseman with tremendous power, he’d be a rare commodity. Unless he develops into a Joey Votto or Freddie Freeman-type hitter, he’d be much more replaceable as a lefty-hitting slugging first baseman. Either way, though, his power should take him places.