Mets to extend Jeff McNeil to four-year deal

Unable to come back to phrases on a one-year wage for the upcoming season, McNeil and the Mets appeared headed towards an arbitration listening to. He’d filed for a $7.75M on the heels of his first Nationwide League batting title in 2021, whereas the Mets had countered with a $6.25M determine. These sums can now be thrown out, as McNeil’s last two arbitration years are locked in. If we depend 2023 on the $7M midpoint of these two sums and determine McNeil might’ve earned wherever from $12-13M in what would’ve been his last arbitration season, the Mets are guaranteeing someplace within the neighborhood of an extra $30M to lock in two extra free-agent seasons and safe a fairly priced membership choice on a 3rd free-agent yr.

McNeil, 31 in April, is now locked in by at the very least his age-34 marketing campaign and presumably his age-35 season. He’s recent off one of many most interesting seasons of his profession, having turned in a .326/.382/.454 batting line with 9 house runs, 39 doubles, a triple and 4 stolen bases in 589 plate appearances. Unsurprisingly, that season earned him a second profession All-Star nod and received him Silver Slugger honors within the Nationwide League — his first such award.

McNeil was one of many hardest strikeouts within the Majors, fanning in a career-low 10.4% of his plate appearances. He’s by no means walked a lot and didn’t change that in 2022 (6.8%), but it surely’s troublesome to argue with the outcomes. McNeil benefited to an extent from a career-high .353 common on balls in play, however even when that mark regresses towards the .324 mark he carried into the 2022 season, his bat-to-ball expertise and penchant for locating the gaps will permit him to stay the effectively above-average hitter he was for almost all of the 2018-21 seasons.

The 2022 season was additionally very arguably the best defensive season of McNeil’s profession. Every of Defensive Runs Saved (3), Final Zone Score (3.5) and Outs Above Common (7) pegged him as a powerful handler of the glove at second base. He additionally logged some transient time within the outfield corners (278 innings) and drew common or higher evaluations for his work there, and he even chipped in a lone inning at third base for good measure. Second base will proceed to be his main house on the diamond, however McNeil has proven up to now that he’s a succesful third baseman, left fielder, or proper fielder, which solely provides to his worth for the Mets.

In fact, since we’re discussing the Mets, the monetary ramifications of the contract lengthen effectively past the $50M that McNeil himself will obtain. The Mets are already over the fourth and last luxury-tax barrier this season, that means any {dollars} they spend are taxed at a 90% clip. Had McNeil received his arbitration listening to and secured a $7.75M wage, that will’ve meant the Mets would’ve paid $6.975M in taxes on his wage — bringing the whole expenditure to $14.725M. As a substitute, the Mets will now be taxed based mostly on the $12.5M common annual worth of McNeil’s contract. Meaning they’ll pay $11.25M in taxes on McNeil’s contract this yr — a rise of $4.275M over what they’d have paid him had he received an arbitration listening to.

There’s some down-the-road tax profit to extending McNeil — even past the apparent worth in conserving a superb participant at an affordable price for the following half-decade. Had McNeil received an arbitration listening to subsequent month — and coming off a batting title, he’d have had a powerful case — he’d have landed that $7.75M wage. With one other sturdy season, he’d fairly presumably have been in for a increase past the $12.5M AAV of his present contract in his last arb season, when the Mets will doubtless once more be within the prime tier of luxurious penalization (with overages being taxed at a 110% clip). The extension, then, might wind up saving the Mets $1M or so of their luxurious ledger for the 2024 season — assuming McNeil has a wholesome and productive 2023 marketing campaign.

Setting apart any such trivialities, the first profit to the Mets is solely conserving a two-time All-Star and paying an annual price that, with good well being for McNeil, will doubtless clock in under his true open-market worth by the point the 2024-25 offseason rolls round. There’s actually some threat for the Mets, as one want solely have a look at McNeil’s pedestrian .251/.319/.360 batting line from 2021 to see that his lack of energy (exterior of the juiced ball marketing campaign in 2019) leaves him with a reasonably tepid ground. The Mets already had management over McNeil’s age-31 and age-32 seasons, and it’s all the time doable that preemptively shopping for out a participant’s age-33 by age-35 seasons might look regrettable in hindsight.

That stated, the aforementioned ’21 marketing campaign is the lone below-average offensive season of McNeil’s profession, and his contact expertise and defensive aptitude at a number of positions determine to make him a perennially helpful participant even into his mid-30s. It’s not life like to count on him to duplicate his 2022 manufacturing within the years forward, however there’s little purpose to suppose this deal will flip into some type of egregious misstep, both.

McNeil now joins Max Scherzer ($43M), Justin Verlander ($43M), Francisco Lindor ($34.1M), Brandon Nimmo ($20.5M), Starling Marte ($20.75M), Edwin Diaz ($21.25M), Kodai Senga ($15M), Jose Quintana ($13M) and Tomas Nido ($2.1M) as gamers locked into their 2024 salaries.

Assuming a good distribution of McNeil’s wage, that’d come out to simply over $225M assured to 10 gamers, with one other 4 membership choices (Mark Canha, Eduardo Escobar, Brooks Raley, Darin Ruf), two participant choices (Omar Narvaez, Adam Ottavino) and a nine-player arbitration class headlined by Pete Alonso all probably including to the invoice.