First – kudos to David Stearns for putting Mark Vientos in the lineup and giving Brett Baty reps at second base in the minors. Ronny Mauricio’s injury has come up as one of the major hindrances to the New York Mets season, as he was the plan to step in at second base. These are hard decisions when one has a veteran All-Star player and former batting champion who seemingly “just needs time to figure it out”.
Weaker pundits would point to the drop in BABIP (batting average on balls in play) and suggest Jeff McNeil was benefiting greatly from the shift. Perhaps mentally and visually he was. The underlying cause to McNeil’s struggles is in the more granular data. He simply cannot hit the ball squarely.
One of the keys to running a major league baseball team is having analysts that look at what builds a swing, or at least the results of what that swing is producing, and as noted last month, *listening*. Everyone is familiar with “at ‘em outs”, as well as how Kevin Costner as Crash Davis phrases it in Bull Durham, “Know what the difference between hitting .250 and .300 is? It’s 25 hits. 25 hits in 500 at bats is 50 points, okay? There’s 6 months in a season, that’s about 25 weeks. That means if you get just one extra flare a week – just one – a gork… you get a groundball, you get a groundball with eyes… you get a dying quail, just one more dying quail a week… and you’re in Yankee Stadium.”
Looking at results doesn’t help forecast well with how the hitter was performing. McNeil has seen his ability to hit the ball hard drop off precipitously. Basically, the underlying data indicates he is struggling more with fastballs and trying to hit “mistake” breaking balls. He is pulling the ball more – which would be hit *into* the shift. He’s hitting slower velocity pitches. That is not a function of the shift. Perhaps he was more confident to go the other way when there was a shift, so mentally or visually he could be struggling. The data seems to suggest he is not hitting the ball solidly on four-seam fastballs, and not picking up the spin on the two finger sinkers. The league will have all this data, and they will continue to abuse McNeill with the percentages of these pitches increases until McNeil shows he can hit them. Historically, McNeil saw an average of sinkers about 15-16% of pitches. This year the percentage is 22%. That’s a massive increase. He has seen more sinkers in 2024 than in all of 2021, with 60% of the plate appearances.
McNeil is 32. Father Time is undefeated.
Stearns is moving impressively quickly, with a tremendous understanding of sunk costs. The staggering numbers of teams floating around .500 means the predicted 81-81 Mets could make the playoffs with just 83 wins instead of the usual 86 wins. Fingers crossed.
Francisco Alvarez returned to the lineup on June 11. The Mets, in June, were 4-3 when he returned. They proceeded to go 9-3 over the next two weeks. On the season, the Mets are 20-8 with Alvarez catching. Just going 11-17 in May while he was out would have made a significant difference in the trajectory of this season.
One of the more relief-inducing changes has been Francisco Lindor returning to form. Baseball is a marathon not a sprint, and a plyer is likely to perform at career norms plus or minus some age adjustments, so when fans panic over a slow start is usually not a good look. The peripheral numbers reviewed regarding McNeil were not the same as with Lindor. Lindor has his seasonal OPS+ at his career mark, and he has thrived in the leadoff role. He also seems to enjoy the option of the stolen base again like he did in 2023. Often fans see the raw numbers of his Cleveland days, and ask about those, ignoring that league levels have dropped since then, and thus his National Leage OPS+ is right in line with his American League value. He is probably the best shortstop in the National League.
Is all well with the Mets? No, they must go to play the New York Yankees and the Houston Astros for the remainder of this month, and year-to-date, their interleague record is an abysmal 5-10, albeit due to some bad luck. With Edwin Diaz being ejected for substance abuse on his hands, the Mets may find themselves in the same situation as when he was on the injured list – unable to close a game out. But that is why they play the games.
Let’s go Mets.
It looked like McNeil had 3 pretty good swings yesterday, 2 of which resulted in pretty unlucky outs. I think he gets another 2 weeks and if nothing has changed, I would not put it past Stearns to outright release him if there isn’t a trade taker. Iglesias, Acuna, and dare I say, Baty, can fill in at 2b the remainder of the season and provide no worse than similar production, but likely much better.
Release would be an overreaction at this point. And none of those trio would be an adequate response if you’re trying to make the playoffs. Yes, Iglesias has earned more playing time for now. But he is hitting over his head an that will come to an end at some point. Plus, he’s a free agent at the end of the year. Acuna is not ready yet. Yes, he has been hot late. But he’s been streaky all year. When he cools down, does he start hitting decently? Or does he just go into another slump? Baty has been cold these past two weeks or so. He’s had only three hits over that time. (Its exactly what I expected might happen if he ever spent more than just four weeks in AAA, and the Mets should have kept him down longer last August).
Hard to see a fan fave like ‘Squirrel’ struggle so much. IMO he should just be used as he was in his former, super- utility role, all over the diamond. When he is not playing, he needs to be in the batting cage and looking at film, working with the hitting coaches and getting back to where he was. A former batting champ just cannot fall off the cliff like that, something is up and that something is likely correctable. His trade value right now is zilch anyway, may as well fix him.
McNeil is 32 years old and this is the third of four sub average seasons in the past four years. Actually last season he was sub average in May thru July. Right now he is platooning with Iglesias and Iglesias as hitting .905 OPS. Iglesias deserves to get more playing time but that doesn’t mean mothball McNeil just further reduced playing time. The Mets have 11 position players that are above 100 OPS+. When McNeil plays he could be the only starter below 100 OPS+. It isn’t ideal but it is bearable. If they’re going to buy at the deadline then second base is not a priority . Internally there isn’t a player to take his place from the minor leagues. Acuna has only a .702 OPS in AAA. Baty shouldn’t learn second based on Cohen’s dime in the major leagues. McNeil is not going anywhere and definitely not a DFA. He has no trade value at the deadline. He has $33.5 M guaranteed salary. Last year he produced a .800 OPS+ August and September. Stearns will deal with McNeil in the winter.
1 – He didn’t just fall of a cliff. He’s been struggling more often than not these past few years. 2 – He took more advantage of the overshift by hitting away from it than anyone in baseball. Not that its been banned, his numbers are affected.
At the end of the day, he may simply be yet another average talent who puts together a couple of career years then starts to fade fast in his early 30’s.
Sorry. that comment was meant to be a response to Edwin E Pena.
For the record, I agree with Metsense’s comments. But while I agree that Acuna is not yet ready, he might be closer than you think: His OPS for the month of June is now .785 (league average is about .770 right now). If he keeps this up, and August call-up may not be out of the question, and September looks very plausible.
It’s not fair to compare what Acuna is doing now to what the league has done for the entire year, since that includes the worst-hitting months of the season.
Compare what Acuna has done in June to what his teammates have done in the same time frame. It’s not particularly impressive. It’s a lot of singles and not much else, as he has a .104 ISO and nearly twice as many Ks (13) as BB (7)
There are 14 hitters besides Acuna to see time this month for Syracuse and eight of them have a higher OPS.
For the record, I don’t believe Acuna is a major league starter any time soon, and see him as more of a UT player. And if the Mets want/need to call up a new INF, I would call up Bannon or Ritter before Acuna. But for a guy whose season was seemingly in the toilet a month ago, the improvement is worth noting.
And its not fair to compare a 22-year old AAA rookie to teammates who are 27+ years old, many of them are AAA veterans of multiple years. Some of them are only now having their best, or one of the best years of their career. Some of them are achieving a high OPS because of good HR power, but have other flaws that render them non-prospects.
Acuna is also an outlier. A lack of power that will always compromise stats like OPS and ISO. His value lies in his extremely good speed tool, coupled with high OBP, and defensive versatility. Even when he is slumping, he still draws walks and scores runs.
but this goes beyond the numbers. The real basis – and relevance – of his improvement is in the fact that he’d been streaky all season long. Through early May, the slumps had been longer and more profound than the good stretches. In May, we started to see the good and bad streaks even out more (even if the conventional press and casual fans did not notice it). Thus far in June, he’s been hitting most of the way, with only a couple of two to four day hitless stretches here and there. And thats big. It means that he is making adjustments faster, and when he does, it is now taking longer for the league pitching to figure him out an shut him down again.
There’s no real solution to McNeil for the time being other than to play the hotter hand – Iglesias – more often. Iglesias will cool off at some point. And while I don’t have faith in McNeil becoming a real force again, he may have a few streaky flashes of his old self left in him. Maybe he reinvents his hitting in the off season and makes himself more useful or next year, just long enough for the Mets to trade him. (Unlike last year, when he improved late in the season and had a UCL strain for an excuse, this year he will be forced to accept and face up to his poor results).
I still don’t understand what the hitting coach gets paid for. While we do see McNeil having some good at bats, quite often these result in weak groundouts, even when he pulls the ball. I know he was the master of slapping the ball the other direction and beating the shift, but I can’t accept that he has forgotten how to hit because there is no more shift. McNeil deserves a seat on the bench while Iglesias continues with the hot hand. His value in playing second base and a corner outfield position makes him a good bench player. Father Time is undefeated, what a great line. We see it more and more each day the players on the other side of 30 just aren’t what they used to be with very few exceptions. I don’t mind Baty getting reps at second base down in Syracuse, but having watched a few games on TV it’s almost like he doesn’t understand how to throw the ball from second base because it’s too close to first base. I see him as a prime trade candidate as they have Mauricio coming back next year plus some of the minor leaders who will hopefully make some progress.
It has been a monumental month of June so far and that they will finish with the winning record is rare indeed. Hoping for a split against the Yankees.
Yeah, I don’t see Baty as a 2B, and while I would not object to trading him for the right deal, let’s also not convict him to having no place on this team: We still don’t know where Alonso winds up next year. If he goes, Vientos can move to 1B. Plus, the DH spot will be open for regulars to rotate. We still don’t know that Mauricio wins a job next spring. Not only will he be coming off of a year-long injury. But he’s had only 5 weeks in the majors. He hit well for three slumped for two. (Everyone was just too drunk over his great start to notice). He may need a few back-and-forths next year before he’s ready to hold down a roster spot. Or maybe Mauricio, Baty, and McNeil rotate in a three-for-two platoon at 2b/3b.