Reese Kaplan -- When the Best Hitting in Baseball is Undervalued

Baseball is a both a game and a business. Most people tend to focus on the former without thinking too much about the latter. For Mets fans that differentiation should be painfully clear after having watched the misgivings of the Payton, deRoulet and Wilpon regimes. 

Decisions which appeared to have positive or negative immediate repercussions to what happened on the field often also had a corresponding impact on future actions.

Now with the Steve Cohen reign in full effect, you would think that the business consequences of actions taken to impact the daily wins and losses were no longer going to pay in the future for what's done today. No, this realization was not about the Carlos Correa situation, the James McCann essential buyout nor any of the other many trades and free agent signings. It concerns a revelation over this weekend that could negatively affect the franchise for years to come.

When headlines came out that the Mets had reached pre-arbitration settlements with 6 of 7 players, it seemed like great news for the team. After all, when both sides agree on a salary then it usually means that the relationship is a firm and solid one that ended in a joint venture of pay-for-play that each felt was equitable and reasonable.

However, when someone is not on the same page when it comes to compensation, leaving the judgment to allegedly impartial arbiters, it would seem that it's a road to a hasty end to the player's relationship with the team. 

If the team gets to pay what he wanted, then the player will likely feel undervalued and unappreciated. If the ruling comes down in favor of the player, then the team is going to feel they were made to look cheap and unnecessarily disagreeable when it came to making things right with the player. 

Bad image hurts just as much as low salary, so an arbitration decision either way can be detrimental to the player's future with the ballclub.

In this particular case, it's doubly frustrating to see that Jeff McNeil, owner of a lifetime .307 batting average, was apparently not worth the $7.75 million he desired in 2023 salary. 

It's not as if he underperformed during the past baseball campaign. He actually hit .326 which was the highest batting average of any ballplayer in all of the major leagues. 

The Mets offered what was projected as a new salary -- $6.25 million. That $1.5 million gap is likely pocket lint to many of the higher priced stars on the team, but to McNeil it represented his first gesture towards equitable pay for the work he delivers.

So while the club was perfectly willing to spend $315 million on a contract for one infielder, already spent $340 million on the contract for another, then shelled out $14.5 million for the big guy on first base, that $1.5 million all of the sudden seemed like a mountain instead of a molehill.

Whichever way the arbiter decides to go with the 2023 salary, it doesn't seem to bode well for Jeff McNeil's long term future in a Mets uniform. He can't feel good it had to come down this road to figuring out his baseball value. 

The front office likely felt that despite winning the major league batting title, chicks dig the long ball and it made more sense to go the extra mile for a slugger than for a contact hitter.

Taking it a bit further, the Mets are somewhat embarrassingly rich with middle infielders going forward. Everyone is aware of the hitting exploits of Brett Baty, Mark Vientos and Ronny Mauricio. 

It's possible the club felt that its infield needs can easily be addressed in the future and there was no need to go all the way in order to keep McNeil happy. Also, if the club should win the arbitration hearing, then his lower salary makes him that much more attractive as a trade chip.

Many people have gone on record from casual fans to baseball media professionals suggesting the club is foolish not to attempt to extend both Pete Alonso and Jeff McNeil in the pattern used by the Houston Astros, Atlanta Braves and other ballclubs. It would seem that while the Alonso door is still likely open given his more-than-fair pre free agency salary assignments, it would appear that the one for McNeil has been not too gently closed.

While no one is suggesting McNeil will turn into a latter day Pete Rose (sans gambling), Tony Gwynn nor Kirby Puckett, the fact is that career .300 hitters don't grow on trees. For a club that was higher in offense without being at the top of the pack in home run power, it would seem that the efforts produced by someone like McNeil should be front and center in evaluating what he delivers to the team. His WAR for 2022 without much in the way of home runs and RBIs was still a highly respectable 5.7. 

It would seem that the potential $1.5 million of savings from a team willing to overpay for just about everyone else is a highly questionable business decision.