Alex Cora didn’t hesitate when asked about Braves rookie Jason Heyward.
The Mets infielder simply shook his head and said: “He’s LeBron James in a baseball uniform.”
The Atlanta outfielder hasn’t wasted any time making an impression and the Mets, who saw the 20-year-old in spring training, will get their first real look at him tonight when the Braves come to Citi Field.
The 6-foot-5, 240-pound Georgia native is among the league leaders in home runs and RBIs, which didn’t surprise Rod Barajas.
The veteran catcher tried to figure out the young slugger’s weaknesses when the Mets faced him in the spring. He didn’t have any luck.
“We started pitching him away and he hit the other way hard and when we went inside, he pulled it with authority,” Barajas said.
The display left Barajas impressed.
“He’s way beyond his years, like a polished major league player,” Barajas said. “He’s so athletic. He’s got size, speed, everything you look for in a player.”
He’s also got enormous expectations being placed on him — expectations he is living up to so far.
“He’s like Ike [Davis] for us,” Jeff Francoeur said. “You know he’s going to be out there every day and know he’s going to produce.”
But for all the excitement surrounding Davis’ arrival for the Mets, even Davis knows he’s not in the same category.
“He’s a stud,” said Davis, who also saw Heyward for the first time this spring training. “He’s a big boy and he can run.”
And he’s also about three years younger than Davis.
“I can’t imagine being in that position when I was 20,” Davis said. “But he’s a lot bigger than I was, a lot bigger than most people.”
But that doesn’t mean that the pitchers who are going to face him the next two nights are intimidated.
“I’ve watched video of him,” left-hander Jon Niese said. “He looks like he could be a really good hitter, but all great hitters have holes and it’s just being able to find them and use them to get them out. He hasn’t seen me, so I think I have the upper-hand on him if anything.”
John Maine, who will start for the Mets tonight, said that he won’t pay any special attention to the phenom.
“He’s one of nine guys I have to face,” Maine said. “That’s the way I look at it.”
The righty will have to look at Heyward tonight, something some other teammates were not relishing.
“It’s frustrating because not too many hitters don’t have something you can exploit,” Barajas said. “Eventually that gets figured out. There’s not too many Barry Bonds or Albert Pujols who can hit anything you throw up there. We’re in the process of finding out what he is.”
Some of the Mets were looking forward to seeing Heyward in person.
“You see him every night on ESPN, hitting home runs,” said Francoeur, who, like Heyward, came up with the Braves after growing up in the Atlanta area. “I just tell him to relax and enjoy it.”
But not too much, for the Mets’ sake.
“I wish he was in a different division,” David Wright said. “We’ll be seeing quite a bit of him over the next few years. He seems like a good player and he seems like he knows what he’s doing out there. I know that the pitchers aren’t too happy that they have to face him this often.”