It seems like half of the 2022 Mets are upcoming free agents. If Jeff McNeil was one of them, no doubt people would be touting his season as nothing more than a contract run. But McNeil is under club control for two more seasons beyond this one. It would be curious to know where McNeil’s leap from a 1.3 to a 5.6 fWAR stands in year-over-year improvement for a guy in his age-30 season. He’s played in 25 more games, so that plays a significant role in the raw improvement. But there’s more going on than that.

The big thing is that McNeil has a lifetime .332 BABIP and this year he’s 22 points above that mark while last season he was 52 points below his career average in the category. The hits are falling in at a great rate, just five points below his career-best mark in his rookie season in 2018 with 248 PA. It will be curious to see if McNeil winds up as one of the few LHB to see his BABIP decrease next year when they ban the shift. But you can claim his bat-to-ball ability will work just as well with a traditional infield setup as it’s done this year while facing shifts.

FanGraphs has shift data on balls put in play. In 167 PA where teams didn’t play the shift against him, McNeil has a .352/.347/.461 line, while with shifts, his numbers are: .359/.355/.431 in 293 PA. It’s interesting that his AVG/OBP numbers are very close but his power disappears once teams employ the shift. It makes sense, though. When McNeil sees the shift, he’s looking to smack the ball thru the hole, which doesn’t lend itself to driving the ball deep into the gap.

McNeil’s been great this season. My one nit-pick is that he’s not hitting for power. Overall, he has a .122 ISO, compared to a lifetime .149 ISO. Against the shift this year, McNeil has a .072 ISO. You could make the case that he’s hurting himself with his slap-hitting approach when teams open up a big hole against him with a shift.

With the standard infield deployment, McNeil has a .109 ISO. That’s not a great mark, but it’s 37 points higher, which is nothing to dismiss lightly. Of course, for whatever reason, FanGraphs does not include HR hit in its shift numbers. But it would be highly counter-intuitive to believe that he would hit more homers when teams shift him, when proportionally he hits fewer doubles and triples while facing the shift.

When McNeil started off the year with a significantly better AVG, people were quick to say the reason why was that he was no longer trying to hit home runs and was instead hitting the ball to all fields. Of course, that wasn’t true.

According to Baseball-Reference, McNeil has hit the ball to the opposite field 19% of the time this year, compared to 26% in 2021. But here’s the thing, when McNeil goes the other way, he has a .623 OPS this season, compared to a .672 mark in 2021. Additionally, when he’s pulled the ball this year, McNeil has a 1.171 OPS. Most hitters are going to do better when they pull the ball, so it’s not exactly an “aha!” moment. But, when he has an OPS nearly .550 points higher when he pulls the ball, that feels significant. For a point of comparison, Brandon Nimmo has a .920 OPS when he pulls the ball, compared to a .788 mark when he hits to the opposite field, a difference of .132 points.

Last year seemed to be one pulled ground ball out after another for McNeil. The problem wasn’t that he was trying to hit HR, it was that he was hitting too many ground balls. This year, he has a career-high in LD% and his lowest GB% since his rookie year in 2018. He also has fewer infield pop-ups. None of the breakdowns by themselves are significant; however, a bunch of items pointing in the right way add up.

My opinion is that banning the shift is bad for the game. But it might be exactly what McNeil needs to get back to hitting more XBH. Instead of licking his chops when seeing all of the open territory on the left side of the diamond when the infielders shift, he can turn his attention to where the outfielders are playing and look to drive the ball deep into the gaps he sees there.

And it’s not like his AVG suffers when teams don’t shift.

Meanwhile, McNeil leads the NL in AVG. Batting average doesn’t hold the same place in the sport as it did in the 20th Century. But it still gives you valuable information. It’s good to get base hits and it will be a feather in McNeil’s hat if he ends up leading the league in AVG. It’s an individual achievement that will be worth celebrating if he holds his lead in the last three games.

But just know that the reason he’s in the lead for the batting title is not because of some change in philosophy, that he’s doing well because he’s no longer trying to pull the ball. He’s doing well because when he pulls the ball, he’s no longer grounding out meekly. In 2021, McNeil had a .706 OPS when he pulled the ball. This year, he’s batting .444 and has the aforementioned 1.171 OPS when he pulls.

Bottom line – hits are good and extra-base hits are better. McNeil is the best version of himself when he drives the ball, not when he slaps the ball the other way. Here’s hoping that McNeil rips off more line drives the remainder of the year and in the playoffs.

5 comments on “Trading grounders for line drives has Jeff McNeil in the batting title lead

  • ChrisF

    As always, great research Brian. I guess being one of the “happy McNiel isnt homer crazy” folks, let me offer that Im a big line drives – and doubles – guy. I couldnt agree more on that front. But I dont think of that as “power” in the sense of Alonso power. We need hard-hitting gap-to-gap hitters of which McNeil is at his best doing that. A giant pile of seeing eye singles is fine, but it undersells his actual potential, and does not provide what the team needs. McNeil is at his worst trying to hit HR.

    One thing about McNeil I heard on one night on tv is that he views himself as getting on base. He smells hits. He hates getting out. Essentially he self identifies as a high avg type hitter. If he performs best getting singles and doubles and tablesetting, perhaps his best position in the line up is #1 and shifting Nimmo to #2, so I would go with

    1. McNeil (L) 4
    2. Nimmo (L) 8
    3. Lindor (S) 6
    4. Alonso (R) 3
    5. Escobar (S) 5
    6. Marte (R) 9
    7. Canha (R) 7
    8. DH
    9. Nido (R) 2

    • Brian Joura

      I felt like I bent over backwards to use phrases like “drive the ball into the gap” over “home runs.” Regardless of how you view things – doubles and triples are power and what we should be looking for from McNeil, with HR sprinkled in, to a greater rate than he’s done in 2022. He should be at 2.5 times as many doubles + triples compared to HR, like Nimmo. Maybe next year…

  • NYM6986

    It was only last season that many were ready to move McNeil after his first down season. Now he is in on the verge of a batting title if he can get a few knocks tomorrow. I’m confused with banning the shift next season to promote more singles. Won’t that lengthen games? Oh yeah, they are going to limit pick off throws instead. McNeil has turned into a great #3 in the lineup although not with a big HR bat other than some recent long ball. Love his ability to simply hit the ball where he wants to. His play in the field has also been productive wherever they put him. Thanks for this analysis Brian. LGM.

  • AgingBull

    I was definitely on the “trade McNeil” bandwagon and am thrilled to be completely wrong. I loved reading what Chris wrote that McNeil sees himself as an “on-base” guy. My sense in prior years was that he wanted to be the HR guy and he would banter with Alonso about the longball. I recall one interview in particular when even Alonso agreed that McNeil out-homered him in BP. Yes, “chicks dig the longball” (as that funny Braves ad from decades ago told us), but that was never McNeil’s forte and I am glad he’s come around to that.
    Brian, this is a tremendous analysis, both from a statistical standpoint and from a logical one. As always, the content on M360 is top drawer!

    • Brian Joura

      Thanks for the kind words!

      Personally, I think the whole McNeil/HR thing is overblown. I think you can find the vast majority of his struggles last year and his success this year in McNeil’s BABIP.

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