Tom Brennan - Superb McNeil Title Surge; & Other Awards

McNeil once wore this cap, but now he wears a CROWN

Jeff McNeil had an awful 2021.  

Just ask him, he'll tell ya.

He hit .251 in 2021, which for him, is like not hitting at all, and in 120 games, he had just 30 RBIs and 48 runs scored.

Many wanted him gone, at least on Facebook, where shallow thinkers with trigger fingers abound.  

Part of his down 2021 season was due to injuries. Squirrels get hurt, too.

I wanted Jeff to stay in Queens, confident he'd rebound in 2022.  And rebound he did.  Kind of like Dennis Rodman rebounded - with great vigor.

He hit, all right, in 2022; he led the majors with a .326 average!

He hit .328 in April, .311 in May, .339 in June, .385 in August and .357 in Sep/Oct.  Wow.  Wade Boggs stuff.

But...he hit a paltry .208 in July.  He came into July hitting .323.  He got hit by a pitch on July 8, when he was hitting .317.

He promptly went 4 for 42 over his next 11 games to drop to .287 on July 29 (morale of story: do not get hit by pitches while pursuing batting title).  

Meanwhile, league-leader (and ultimate MVP) Paul Goldschmidt sat at .334 on July 29, leading the scuffling Squirrel by a gaping 47 points.  

Batting race over. Or so it seemed.

And Paul had a huge home advantage too - in friendly Cards stadium, for the year he hit 57 points better than on the road.  

Jeff, meanwhile, had to play in Citi Morgue, where he hit 59 points worse than he did on the road.  Citifield failed to qualify as hitter-friendly, even during batting practice.

How could one overcome that?  

I don't know, but the scrambling Squirrel did.  

He went 5 for 9 in his last 2 July games, then .385 in August and .357 the following month-plus, basically hitting .380 from July 30 on, and surged 39 points after July 29, while Paulie G slid 17 points.

In the process, McNeil turned that 47 point deficit into a 9 point beatdown of gravitational Goldschmidt. Newton’s Law, Paulie. Hurricane Ian brought a tidal surge, joyous Jeffie brought us a title surge.

Jeff “only” had to also catch and pass Freddie Friggin' Freeman in the final week, and catch and pass him, he did.  

Sorry, Freddie. No, not really sorry. Not really sorry at all. Elated, actually.

Euphoric. Joy unspeakable. No friggin’ title for Freddie.

So, kudos to Mr. Jeff McNeil, who won the Mets' 2nd batting title ever, and first ever (so far) by a Squirrel.

May it be the first of many.  

And, as an avid golfer, I'm sure Jeff only uses Titleist golf balls, so more batting titles are to come.

But getting back to 2021 vs. 2022, his SEVENTY FIVE POINT IMPROVEMENT YEAR TO YEAR should also win him Comeback Player of the Year. 

McNeil's comeback, to me, was the most predictable of any huge Mets bounce-back since Tommie Agee's beaning year of 1968, when he barely hit .200 with 17 RBIs.  I was not surprised when he added 60 points, 21 HRs and 59 RBIs in 1969 as a once-again-healthy star.   

I guess I would also add in Pete Alonso's strong bounce-back in 2021 after his truncated 2020 disaster of a season.  That bounce-back was also as near a no-brainer as one can get.

P.S. The Mets out-hit and out-scored the Braves in September, in part due to the McNeil surge, but Mets’ pitchers had a 3.99 September ERA while the Braves’ staff was sterling at 2.88.

Whaddya think about the McNeil surge, folks?

OTHER AWARDS!

Also, while considering awards, what about MVP?

Alonso was 8th in the MVP voting (what? So low?) and Lindor was 9th (what? So low?), despite combining for 66 HRs and 238 RBIs in 2022, but ex-Met Andres Gimenez playing at the age of 23 was 6th.  How about that?

And Sandy Alcantara dominated the Cy Young voting despite what appears to be a heaping helping of hometown advantage (1.64 ERA at home, 3.10 on the road).   

Lethal, and don't you forget it.

While relievers are rarely taken seriously for the Cy Young award, I polled two erudite individuals - me, and my brother Steve - who both felt that miraculous Edwin Diaz deserved the award the most. Why?

61 relief outings, just one weak one.  1.31 ERA, 3-1, 32 saves with almost no blown saves, 119Ks in 64 innings, and 0.84 WHIP.  Insanely good. Heck, for perspective, in 1968 thru 1970, fine Mets reliever Ron Taylor relieved in 176 games…and also fanned 119 batters…in THREE years, while averaging 75 innings per year.

Ironically, 9th inning specialist Diaz finished below NINTH in the Cy voting.

Duly noted is Alcantara had more than twice the WAR.  Why?  Well, he pitched lots more innings. Let's look at this incrementally, though.

Alcantara pitched 164 more innings than Edwin, but allowed 58 more runs, and 58 runs in 164 innings is an average of over 3 runs per 9 innings.  And in those extra 164 innings, Sandy fanned just 91 more hitters.  He also won 11 more games than Edwin, but lost 8 more, too.  

And his so-so 14-9 season record (I know, blame his team) was preceded by a 20-34 record in his previous MLB seasons.

Edwin would have saved a lot more games than 32, too, had Buck not brought him in several times for the 8th inning and not the 9th, so he could mercilessly shut down the heart of the other team's order, and he had few saves in September's stretch drive because there simply were very few save situations for him that month.  Absent those 2 matters, he easily would have saved 40 or more games in 2022.

Nah, Edwin has my vote, if anyone let me vote.  

Cy Young winner Edwin Diaz. 

I like the ring of that, with or without the accompaniment of trumpets.