Welcome back to another edition of Top Dynasty Keepers. It is hard to believe we are already done with the first month of the season.
With that in mind, major league teams are already making changes to their rosters. The Cardinals have decided Jordan Walker needs a little more seasoning in the minors, especially in right field. But if you are a Walker owner, don’t fret. He will be back soon enough because he did show why he is one of the top prospects in the game his first week in The Show.
Meanwhile, clubs are bringing players up some of their top prospects to give them their shot in the majors. Two of those players are Zach Neto and Brett Baty
The Fast Track
Neto was recalled by the Los Angeles Angels two weeks ago after a very successful, but brief, stint in the minors. The shortstop was a star at Campbell University, but he was only drafted last summer. Now, less than a year after the draft, he is starting for the Angels after entering the season ranked as the 53rd best prospect by Baseball America, 89 by MLB.com and 47th by Baseball Prospectus
The More Traditional Route
Unlike Neto, Baty has taken the more traditional route on his way to New York. Drafted out of high school, he has played at every level in the minors. But while doing so, he climbed up the prospect rankings. He broke into the top 100 in 2020 when MLB.com ranked him 93rd and then 94th in 2021. By 2022 he was a top 100 prospect pretty much across the board.
MLB.com moved him up to 27th while Baseball America ranked him 39th and Baseball Prospectus 13th. Baty saw time with the Mets last season but was still a prospect entering 2023. MLB ranked him at 21 while he was ranked 33rd and 17th by Baseball American and Baseball Prospectus.
With both players now in the majors, let’s take a look at them.
Zach Neto
| YEAR | LEVEL | G | AB | HR | RBI | SB | AVG | OBP | SLG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-22 | NCAA | 100 | 377 | 27 | 108 | 31 | .403 | .500 | .751 |
| 2022-23 | Minors | 44 | 174 | 8 | 37 | 8 | .322 | .408 | .529 |
| 2023 | Angels | 13 | 42 | 0 | 4 | 0 | .214 | .313 | .622 |
Hitting Machine
Loving what Neto can do with the bat, the Angels selected him with the 13th pick in the first round of the 2022 draft and he ended the season at Double-A Rocket City, where he slashed .320/.382/.492 with four dingers, 23 RBI and four steals in 30 games.
While Neto didn’t break camp with the Angels this season, it didn’t take long for him to get the call-up to the majors after a blistering start at Double-A Rocket City. In seven games he slashed .444/.559/.815 with three homers, 10 RBI, and three steals.
But if you have followed Neto’s career, you know that hitting comes easily for him. He hit over .400 in 2021 at Campbell University to earn Big South Conference Player of the Year. In 2022, he earned the Player of the Year award again after slashing .407/.514/.769 with 15 home runs, 50 RBI, and 19 steals in 53 games.
Contact, Contact, Contact
Neto isn’t a great power hitter, but he isn’t a slap hitter either. His slugging percentage in college was .751 and during his brief stint in the minors it was .529. Overall, Neto has good control of the strike zone. His career strikeout percentage at Campbell was 10%. With the Angels that figure is at 18%, but over the last week he has a strikeout percentage of 17%.
However, Neto tends to swing too much, trusting his ability to hit the ball. Through his first 13 games with LA, he has yet to draw a walk and he had a 9% walk rate in the minors.
Improving by the Day
Through his first six games, Neto was slashing .136/.240/.227 with five strikeouts. But over the last seven games entering Friday, he has started to settle in and is showing why the Angels recalled him. During the last week he slashed .300/.391/.400 with two doubles and four RBI. And while Neto has yet to draw a walk, he is a magnet for getting hit by pitches as he has already been plunked six times this season!
As you can see from the hit chart, Neto is mostly pulling everything right now. In fact, he has a 57.6% pull percentage while going opposite field only 18.2% of the time. But as he adjusts more to the majors, I fully expect him to start to use the entire field and hit for average power as well.
Brett Baty
| YEAR | LEVEL | G | AB | HR | RBI | SB | AVG | OBP | SLG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-23 | Minors | 246 | 917 | 43 | 164 | 10 | .293 | .394 | .508 |
| 2022 | Mets | 11 | 38 | 2 | 5 | 0 | .184 | .244 | .342 |
| 2023 | Mets | 9 | 28 | 1 | 3 | 0 | .321 | .387 | .464 |
Loving the Power
Coming out of high school, some teams were concerned about the fact that Baty was 19. But the Mets didn’t let that scare them and they nabbed him with the 12th overall pick in 2019. They are glad that they did. Since joining the Mets, he has displayed the power that made him a potent bat in high school. In 246 minor league games, he slugged 43 homers and slashed .293/.394/.508.
In 89 games at Double-A last season, Baty smashed 19 homers and slashed .312/.406/.544, earning a promotion to Triple-A. But he was there for only six games before joining the Mets, where he hit a home run in his very first at-bat. But Baty would struggle over the next 10 games and was slashing .184/.244/.342 when he suffered a torn UCL in his right thumb, requiring surgery and ending his season.
Needs to Lift the Ball
Scouts give Baty a 60 grade for his power, but he hasn’t really taken full advantage of it. During the 2021 season, he had a ground ball rate of 55.8% – the worst rate in the organization. But he lowered that to 43.5% last season while in the minors.
However, with the Mets his ground ball percentage was 56.7% last year and is at 52.6% this year. The good news for Baty is his line drive percentage has gone from 16.7% to 31.6% this year with the Mets.
Two Keepers
I have liked both Neto and Baty for a while as I traded for Baty last season while he was still in the minors and I added Neto to two of my dynasty rosters this season. Neto brings to the plate as far as his average and on-base percentage. He is going to hit for a high average and eventually, he will start to walk more and boost his OBP and steal some bases along the way.
But if I had to choose between the two, I like Baty a bit more thanks to his power potential. It is obviously better than Neto’s, and Neto is playing at a position that actually has its fair share of players who can slug the ball out of the park. Because of his sluggish start at the plate and lack of ability to post huge power numbers, Neto is rostered in only 7% of Yahoo leagues and 4% of ESPN league, making him an easy add.
Baty has hit for power at every level he has played and he will do so with the Mets. Yes, he has that high ground ball percentage right now, but I think he will eventually figure out how to get more loft of the ball. Once he does that, watch out because he has great power at a position that isn’t really loaded with a bunch of power hitters. He is currently rostered in only 12.6% of ESPN leagues (41% in Yahoo leagues), so if you are an ESPN player, go grab him because he is undervalued right now. Even Yahoo owners are missing the boat.
