Kind of but you can use it differently: I like writing pure modern ES6, APIs, etc. and using Babel only to compile ES5 + polyfills for old browsers. You can develop directly in most current browsers, avoid lengthy compile times, etc. and there's zero lock-in if you prefer a separate tool next year.

That's quite different from some of the dreadnaught-weight frameworks which need a huge toolchain to run Hello World. That can be worth it if you have a huge complex application which uses all of that functionality but otherwise it turns simple projects into ongoing time commitments.