The Rockaway Wave
Originally Published June 6, 2025
Batting practice at Maimonides Park is a show, and Jesús Báez is the star.
“What makes it special is it comes from a small frame,” Cyclones manager Gilbert Gómez said of the 5-foot-10 Báez after remarking on how impressive his BP was earlier in the day. “He’s not a six-four guy, he’s not a six-three guy, but he creates such torque on that swing, and he has the bat speed to hit the ball the way he hits it.”
The Cyclones are packed with talent, especially offensively. Nine players currently on MLB Pipeline’s Mets top-30 prospects list reside in Brooklyn. Báez, the No. 7 overall player and second-highest ranked player in Brooklyn, might have the most power of anyone in the Mets system.
The right-hand-hitting Báez regularly clears the scoreboard in left-center field with ease, almost as if he’s threatening to dent the signs on the original Nathan’s Famous down the road. He’s not the only Brooklyn hitter to do so, but he’s easily the one who does so the most consistently. And it’s not just batting practice power, it’s starting to show in games.
Báez broke out last season at Single-A St. Lucie, hitting .262/.338/.444/.782 with 10 home runs, 14 doubles, one triple, and exit velocity numbers that jumped off the page for anyone, but especially for a 19-year-old. His 89.7 mph average exit velocity was seventh among the 80 players who had at least 200 plate appearances in the league, and second among all teenagers to even have a single plate appearance.
The top of those rankings is littered with players ranked in the MLB top-100 and in organizational top-30s. Skyrocketing Tigers prospect Josue Briceño is the only player higher than Báez on the list. Fellow Tigers prospect and top-30 prospect in baseball, Kevin McGonigle, is No.5, and former Blue Jays and Yankees first-round picks Arjun Nimmala and George Lombard Jr. are No. 9 and No. 10.
Báez earned himself a promotion to High-A Brooklyn towards the end of June and played well in his first few games at the new level, but tore his meniscus sliding into second base just eight games into his time with the Cyclones, costing him the rest of 2024.
He rehabbed the rest of the year and all offseason, with the goal of having a full 2025 season.
“[I] felt excellent coming in,” Báez said through Joe Tellez, Brooklyn’s bullpen catcher who was acting as an interpreter. “[I] knew that the season was long, and [I] was getting ready to play a long season and stay healthy.”
Báez was ready for Opening Day with Single-A St. Lucie, batting second, and playing shortstop.
“[It was a] special moment for [me] and [my] family, and [I] missed being on the field a lot,” Báez said.
He played six games in St. Lucie, getting back into game action for the first time in about 9 months, and then returned to High-A a week and a half into Brooklyn’s season.
His start with the Cyclones this season was rough. In his first game, he went 0-for-4 with a walk and four strikeouts, and he would go 0-for-15 before picking up his first hit in his fourth game at High-A.
“He was hurt for a long time,” Gómez said. “So just settling in, understanding what he needed to do to be able to be able to give himself a shot at hitting multiple pitches … but we know the kind of talent that he has, it was just a matter of him actually getting some at-bats under his belt, so he was able to make those adjustments.”
Báez picked up two hits in the game where he broke his hitless streak, slugged his first home run of the season the very next day (off MLB rehabber Kyle Gibson, no less), and finished April by hitting in seven of nine games.
May was much of the same. In 25 games, Baez hit .341/.456/.537/.993 with four home runs and four doubles. He walked 17 times and struck out just 12 times for a 1.417 BB/K ratio, by far the best in May among qualified South Atlantic League hitters. The only other hitter who was even over one was Carson Benge, his teammate.
“I think that’s a byproduct of him being behind the ball more and being on time more,” Gómez said. “And then, once you hit a couple of good ones, and you’re seeing the ball well, and you understand that you don’t need to cheat to be able to hit the baseball because of his bat speed, then he’s making those decisions a little later, which allows him to make better decisions.”
Báez never had true swing and miss issues, but he has still managed to drop his strikeout rate from a little over 20% in his first few seasons in the Dominican Summer League to 17.2% at High-A, which is what it stands at entering June 4. If you take out his first three games, where he struck out seven times in 14 plate appearances, his High-A strikeout rate drops to 14.1%.
It’s rare to see this combo of power and bat-to-ball skills, especially from a player this young. His ISO (isolated power, a stat that measures a player’s power by subtracting their batting average from their slugging percentage) of .151 entering June 4 is 87th out of 205 High-A qualifiers. That’s good, and in the top half of players, but it also doesn’t really tell the full story.
Of those 205 qualifiers, just 36 are 20 years old or younger. Of that group, Báez’s OPS ranks 10th, his wRC+ ranks 9th, and his ISO ranks 16th. He’s also one of just six High-A players 20 years old or younger to have an ISO over .150 and a strikeout rate under 20%.
Four of the other five — Briceño, Josue De Paula, Jefferson Rojas, and Nimmala — are top 100 prospects on MLB Pipeline. De Paula and Nimmala are on Baseball America’s top 100 list as well.
The other, Demetrio Crisantes, who will miss the rest of the season with a shoulder injury, fell off Baseball America’s list because of durability concerns, not because of ability.
Báez was actually on the list earlier in the year, but fell off due to his early-season struggles, with the article saying he could return later in the year if he rebounds. From May 7, the day the article was published, to June 4, Báez hit .389/.489/.569/1.058 with a 202 wRC+, .181 ISO, and a streak of 11 straight games without striking out.
As mentioned, without those first three games in High-A, Báez’s strikeout rate would drop from 17.2% to 14.1%. His OPS would rise from .813 to .894, his wRC+ would rise from 138 to 160, and his ISO would rise from .151 to .167. Instead of ranking 10th, 9th, and 16th in those respective stats among players 20 years old or younger in High-A, he would rank 4th, 2nd, and 15th.
Obviously, it’s not that simple. Every game counts. If you remove the worst three games of any player’s season, their stat line will look better. However, with Báez, you can do so a little more justifiably. He was coming off a major knee injury and naturally needed some time to get comfortable at the plate again. It took a few games for him to settle in, but he’s been playing at a high level consistently for well over a month.
Báez has split his time between shortstop, third base, and second base this season. He’s spent the most time at shortstop, and that’s the position Báez said feels more comfortable at, but many expect him to end up at third base long term. He doesn’t have elite speed or quickness — he’s more of an average runner — so the range needed to play shortstop in the big league might not be there.
For now, though, the Mets are giving him significant looks at shortstop.
“He has the actions to play short, he has the arm to play third, obviously the bat would play everywhere if it continues to develop the way that it is,” Gómez said. “I think he has a shot to stay up the middle if he continues to understand the importance of taking care of his body and making sure that he’s within the right weight, which he’s done a really good job with. But again, the bat will definitely help him move around. But I do think he can stick at short if everything plays out the way that we think that it’s gonna play out.”
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