Mets call up Brett Baty, place Eduardo Escobar on injured list, DFA R.J. Alvarez, and call up Sam Clay

The Mets have called up the highly-touted Brett Baty, placed Eduardo Escobar on the injured list with a strained left oblique, designated R.J. Alvarez for assignment, and called up Sam Clay.

Baty entered the year as the Mets’ second-best prospect in our rankings, and if those rankings had been re-done at the midway point of the season, he almost certainly would have remained in that slot. The left-handed-hitting 22-year-old third baseman started the year in Double-A Binghamton, where he hit .312/.406/.544 with 19 home runs in 394 plate appearances before earning a promotion to Triple-A Syracuse. He got just six games in there before getting called up to the Mets, but in that very small sample, he hit .364/.462/.364. He’s in the Mets’ starting lineup tonight in Atlanta, batting eighth and playing third base.

Escobar tweaked his oblique over the weekend, and while he didn’t hit the injured list immediately, he had to be scratched from the Mets’ lineup last night in Atlanta because of the issue. In 409 plate appearances, he’s just .216/.269/.384 with 12 home runs and an 85 wRC+ in the first year of a two-year deal that he signed with the Mets over the winter.

Alvarez threw two-and-one-third innings for the Mets last night in Atlanta, his first appearance in the big leagues since 2015, but he struggled in the process.

Clay is a 29-year-old lefty who has been called up to the Mets previously this year, but he hasn’t thrown a big league pitch for them yet. He’s thrown 4.1 innings for the Nationals in the big leagues this year, but he’s totaled 30 innings of work in Triple-A between his time with the Nationals and Mets.