Jeff McNeil Bound for Sacramento as Metsodus Continues

One other day, one other Met out the door. Jeff McNeil, who up to now had spent his whole 13-year skilled profession within the Mets group, is now an Athletic. The 33-year-old second baseman and outfielder is headed to Sacramento (or, to make use of the Athletics’ official branding, Components Unknown), in trade for 17-year-old pitching prospect Yordan Rodriguez. The Mets can pay down $5.75 million of the $15.75 million because of McNeil in 2026, and if the A’s decline McNeil’s membership choice for 2027, Steve Cohen will cowl the $2 million buyout.

On the time of the commerce, McNeil was the Mets’ energetic chief in video games performed, plate appearances, and hits. If you need a way of how the Mets’ offseason goes, right here’s a enjoyable reality. Up to now 30 days, the franchise has had 4 energetic leaders in these classes: Brandon Nimmo, who was traded to Texas simply earlier than Thanksgiving; then Pete Alonso, who signed with the Orioles throughout Winter Conferences; then McNeil; and now Francisco Lindor. All that upheaval with out taking part in a single recreation.

All advised, 16 of the 63 gamers who suited up for the Mets in 2025 have departed because the finish of the season. Come February, “Meet the Mets” is likely to be greater than a tune. They’re going to must spend the primary week of camp sporting title tags and doing icebreakers.

Not all of these 16 gamers have been as essential as Alonso, or McNeil, or Edwin Díaz. There are some leases, some relievers, and a few depth guys. I admit I had forgotten that Frankie Montas was on the Mets. Absolutely Mets followers wish to overlook that their crew ever employed Cedric Mullins.

However as a lot as those self same followers will miss McNeil — a Twelfth-round decide who became among the finest contact hitters within the league — it’s been clear for a while now that his time in New York was winding down. The previous Lengthy Seashore State star is now three seasons faraway from his final really excellent marketing campaign; since 2023, he’s hit .253/.326/.389, which is a wRC+ of 102, and averaged inside a rounding error of two.0 WAR per season.

That’s nonetheless a really helpful participant — a crew as perpetually miserly because the Athletics wouldn’t spend $10 million on him in any other case — however now not an indispensable a part of a crew with championship aspirations. The Mets are spending $26 million on Marcus Semien this yr, leaving McNeil out of the second base image. And whereas McNeil’s bat continues to be helpful, it’s not splendid for left area or DH. (For what it’s value, McNeil’s defensive numbers have been simply tremendous at second in 2025.)

The Mets’ loss is the Athletics’ achieve. McNeil is a terrific bat-to-ball hitter, normally one of many hardest guys within the league to strike out. In McNeil’s finest seasons, he posted OBPs within the .380s. With one exception, he by no means hit for a lot energy, and he’s by no means been a stolen base risk. Peak McNeil was type of a poor man’s Millennial Wade Boggs. He’d simply spray smooth line drive singles everywhere in the area, stand on first, and look ahead to Alonso to crank a ball over the fence so they might each jog house. In the very best of occasions, he was good to attain round 80 runs a yr.

If McNeil desires to maintain doing that — get on base by way of any means crucial, and wait to be pushed in by an enormous dude with plus energy — West Sacramento is likely one of the finest locations within the league to be.

The A’s have, considerably sneakily, constructed out a lineup with tons of energy: Nick Kurtz and Brent Rooker, most notably, but additionally Lawrence Butler, Shea Langeliers, and Tyler Soderstrom. Additionally they have Jacob Wilson, who’s one of many few hitters within the league who’s tougher to strike out than McNeil. Is it controversial to say I’d take this lineup over the Mets lineup, as at the moment constituted? As a result of I might.

As McNeil has aged, he’s advanced as a hitter. Daniel Murphy is now a greater historic comparability than Boggs, as a result of over the previous three seasons, McNeil has discovered to elevate and pull.

In 2023, the primary season for which Baseball Savant has bat monitoring knowledge, McNeil had a median swing pace of 68.1 mph and a fast-swing price (bat pace of 75 mph or extra) of two.6%. For context, that’s eighth-percentile bat pace. In every of the previous two years, his swing has gotten longer and extra forceful, and he’s letting it eat on a better share of his swings. In 2025, McNeil’s common swing pace climbed to 70.7 mph (nonetheless solely twenty seventh percentile, however sooner than it was earlier than), with a fast-swing price of 10.2%.

The consequences of this alteration have been about what you’d anticipate. McNeil has truly barely elevated his in-zone contact price, and whereas he’s whiffing extra outdoors the zone, who cares? That’s not the place he’s going to do injury anyway. He’s swinging much less on the whole, and strolling extra — in 2025, McNeil posted the primary double-digit stroll price of his main league profession.

He’s additionally pulling the ball extra, and doing so within the air, the place onerous contact turns into extra-base hits. In 2021, 13.1% of McNeil’s batted balls have been pulled and within the air, which was 183rd out of the 232 hitters who certified for Baseball Savant’s leaderboard. This season, his in-air pull price was 26.9%, which was thirteenth out of 251.

This hasn’t precisely led to an influence surge… effectively, possibly it has, by McNeil’s requirements. In 2019, when McNeil was in his prime and the baseballs have been full of Flubber, he hit 23 house runs. Till 2023, that was the one double-digit house run complete of his profession. Now, McNeil has hit 12 house runs in back-to-back seasons.

All that energy has come to the pull aspect. McNeil hasn’t hit an opposite-field house run since August 5, 2022. Since that date, all 30 of his large league dingers have come to the fitting aspect of lifeless middle.

Is there extra energy to come back with a change of house stadium? Perhaps. Sutter Well being Park was the second-most hitter-friendly stadium within the league in 2025, trailing solely Coors Area. Citi Area normally performs round impartial. However for left-handed hitters alone, Citi Area was truly fairly a productive venue in 2025; it ranked fifth, simply two spots behind Sutter Well being Park, although the Athletics’ stadium remained extra homer-friendly. McNeil may decide up an additional house run or two on the margins, however I’d be shocked if he immediately found 25-homer energy.

If he did, this could be the steal of a lifetime for the A’s. Because it stands, they’ve acquired a stable, dependable second baseman, for not that a lot cash, in trade for a youngster no one had heard of 12 months in the past.

Rodriguez signed with the Athletics in January, simply earlier than his seventeenth birthday, for $400,000. (Sure, meaning I’m writing up a participant who was born in 2008. I’m asking for a coffin for Christmas.) And it’s been an excellent first yr within the execs for the Cuban teenager. At 6-foot-3, 190 kilos, he’s athletic and projectable, and must develop as a starter for the foreseeable future.

That’s backed up by his stuff: His fastball sits at 91 to 95 mph and touched 96. However the very best factor Rodriguez has going for him is the slider.

Rodriguez’s breaker sits within the low 80s, with ridiculous depth. Eric Longenhagen advised me this pitch has a lot bend, the automated pitch tagging system calls it a curveball fairly continuously. It’s a real weapon, and hitters within the Dominican Summer time League didn’t know what to do with it.

As thrilling as that’s, Rodriguez is nowhere near being a top-100-type prospect; Eric put a grade of 35+ on him. As a rule, it’s not a good suggestion to get out over one’s skis over a teenage pitching prospect who’s thrown in eight skilled video games ever, all of them within the DSL. Even when Rodriguez does flip into an enormous leaguer — and he may — it’ll be a few years earlier than he’ll be useful to the Mets.

Rodriguez is an honest get in a wage dump commerce, however make no mistake, that’s what that is. That makes it onerous to judge, as a result of every time a crew sheds payroll, we’ve got to attend to see what they spend that cash on as an alternative.

Eliminating these 16 gamers has saved the Mets, by my math, someplace within the neighborhood of $130 million, after accounting for the cash they’ve eaten to chop Montas and grease the skids to jettison Nimmo and McNeil. Between Semien, Devin Williams, Luke Weaver, and Jorge Polanco, they’ve used up solely slightly greater than half of these financial savings.

Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns due to this fact has fairly a bit of cash to spend, even earlier than he asks Cohen to achieve into his pockets for extra. Does dropping McNeil make it simpler for the Mets to go after Cody Bellinger, or Alex Bregman, or Framber Valdez? Perhaps a couple of of them? In that case, you’d must say this transfer was value it.

To Cohen’s credit score, the Mets are one of many few golf equipment that I’m prepared to imagine will reinvest the cash they’ve simply saved. However whereas we all know now that the A’s did good enterprise right here, we’ll have to attend and see how the Mets made out.