Can Brett Baty Play Left Field?

With the signing of Bo Bichette to play third base, infielder Brett Baty is a man without a position. There have been reports that Baty could play first base, a position he spent last off-season learning, or left field, a position he has some but limited experience playing. The Mets need outfielders, and while I would not expect him to be an everyday player out there, is this a position Baty is truly capable of playing?

Between the majors and minors, Baty has played a total of 250 innings across 30 games in left field. Only one of those innings was logged in the majors. As part of an SNY interview during the 2024 Winter Meetings, David Stearns touched on Baty’s defensive versatility, saying, “Brett did a great job last year of creating some positional versatility for himself. We feel comfortable with him at second base. I think he has the ability to flex into the outfield if we need him to do that.”

Prospect Scouting Reports

A good place to start is to look at how Baty’s outfield defense was scouted as he came up through the Mets system. Here’s what various platforms had to say.

Baseball America, November 28, 2022

“Baty has improved his defensive play at third base, where his plus arm plays but his range and release grade as more capable than outstanding. He started 11 games in left field in the minors and is athletic enough to play there to get his bat in the lineup.”

Baseball Prospectus, December 22, 2021

“There’s a difference between a 50 defender and a 40 defender, and Baty’s 2021 and 2022 illustrate that well. He’s seen some time in the outfield as well, and while it’s not impossible his work at the hot corner smooths out to a playable 45 with more reps, right field might be the ultimate landing spot for him.”

MLB Pipeline, August 17, 2022

“A better runner than one might expect given his size, Baty has grown to be a capable defender at third base, where his plus arm fits the bill. The Mets gave him time in left field in Binghamton, and he has enough athleticism to work there.”

Sprint Speed

A big part of playing the outfield involves being able to cover enough ground. Brett Baty’s sprint speed last year clocked in at 27.0 feet per second. Among left fielders, that would put him at 55/67 tied with Lars Nootbaar, Max Kepler, and Gavin Sheets. If you add right fielders to the mix you also get Adolís Garcia, Jésus Sánchez, Jonathan Rodríguez, Connor Joe, and Hunter Renfroe.

By outs above average, they placed

• Adolís Garcia, 1 OAA, 72nd percentile
• Max Kepler, 0 OAA, 63rd percentile
• Jésus Sánchez, -1 OAA, 41st percentile
• Lars Nootbaar, -1 OAA, 39th percentile
• Hunter Renfroe, -1 OAA (not qualified)
• Connor Joe, -3 OAA, not qualified
• Gavin Sheets, -4, OAA (not qualified)
• Jonathan Rodríguez, -4 OAA (not qualified)

Now, there is a lot more to outfield defense than sprint speed. Reads off the bat, jump, routes, and burst are all major parts. But this shows that sprint speed is not necessarily a limiting factor for Baty to be able to be playable, or even above average at the position.

Baty’s Outfield Range

Amazin Avenue on February 1, 2023, commented on his routes in their scouting report.

“Baty does not have a quick first step or afterburners, but he is a solid runner once he gets going,” wrote Steve Sypra. “Making him a surprisingly effective outfielder in the limited innings he spent in left field in 2021 and 2022. His read off the bat and his routes need a lot of work, but as an infielder for most of his baseball career, this is understandable and can improve with more work and time in the field.”

Moving to the outfield has always been in the cards for Baty. In a 2022 interview with Sam Dykstra of MLB Pipeline, Baty talked about playing the outfield.

“I feel like I’ve grown up in all sports and really just being an athlete. I feel like I make good reads out there. I feel like I can really track the ball down. I am a bigger dude, but I feel like I can get going a little bit when I do get moving. I feel like outfield shows a lot of versatility, so I like that about my game.”

This tells us a bit about Baty’s flaws in the outfield. His first step off the bat needed improvement, and since he has not played significantly more outfield time since 2023, that is likely still the case. Without plus sprint speed, he needs to improve that, and ideally, with more experience he can. Baty himself recognized this, but it does sound like he has the potential to make up for some of this with bursts, as mentioned by Amazin Avenue. His routes also likely need to improve, but ideally that can come with more experience. The Mets help take Brandon Nimmo from a -0.3 route fielder in 2016 to a +0.3 route fielder in 2017. Nimmo eventually peaked as a +0.8 route fielder in 2023, which ranked fourth out of 99 outfielders.

With Kai Correa and Gilbert Gomez running the Mets outfield instruction, maybe they will be able to maximize Baty’s reaction, routes, and bursts.

Baty’s Throwing Arm

Brett Baty averaged throws at 81.2 MPH during the 2025 season. That was down from the last two years, when he threw 84.1 MPH in 2024 and 85.4 MPH in 2023. His 81.2 MPH arm strength includes throws from second base so that could possibly skew those numbers down. In 2025, his max was 85.8 MPH, which is in line with where he was in 2023 at 86.1 MPH. In 2024 his max was 87.8 MPH.

If we go by the 84.1 MPH number from 2024, when he was playing only third base, Baty would have ranked 58/70, just above Brandon Nimmo. His 85.4 MPH average from 2023 would have ranked 49/70, just above Brooks Baldwin and Isaac Collins.

One important note from Statcast is that fielders, especially outfielders, often get a running start before throwing. As a result, the velocity on their throws can exceed that of pitchers, who throw to batters from the mound. So, it is possible that this would lead to higher arm strength readings if he were playing in the outfield.

As a prospect, Baty was scouted with a 60-grade arm by both Baseball America and MLB Pipeline so it is not unreasonable to wonder if there is some untapped potential there.

Conclusion

Baty has the athleticism and skills under the hood to be capable of playing left field, though he is likely far away from being someone you want there every day. He does likely profile better than Dominic Smith and J.D. Davis did, but that is probably not the bar we want to go off.

He also has multiple paths to improving his outfield defense. The quickest is to either improve his first step. Speeding up his reaction time will allow him to cover more ground. Better routes could be another way he can improve his ability to cover ground – we saw the extreme of that success with Nimmo. Tapping into more arm strength and accuracy and getting closer to those scouting reports could help make up for some of the above as well.

The Mets coaching staff has and will work on these things with Baty. But if he is going to be a part of this team next year and not a trade chip, one of the ways for him to be the most useful is to increase his versatility. There could be a world where Baty develops into a role similar to what Jeff McNeil did as a Met, where we see him play 140 games a year between 3B, 2B, 1B, and in the outfield.

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