Tom Brennan - Things You May Not Know About Jeff McNeil (and Tyler Pill)

The Binghamton hat he wore in 2018 when it became clear McNeil was on his way.

$50 million contract - and a MLB batting title.

Amazing how far Jeff McNeil has come.  Consider this:

In high school, he averaged a sweet 17 PPG as a senior in hoops, went to the U.S. Junior Amateur Golf Championship, and hit .446 as a senior.  Fortunately for the Mets, that golf tournament did not go as well as he hoped, so he thankfully focused on - you guessed it - baseball.

As a 19 year old in 2011, 1st year college player, he hit no HRs in 53 games and batted .271.  Meh.

As a 20 year old 2nd year college player in 2012, he hit no HRs in 55 games and batted .258. Meh.

No one would be looking at that and thinking, "yep, future major league star."

As a 20 year old in the Cape Cod League, he hit no HRs in 40 games and batted .302.

As a 21 year old college junior in 2013, he hit no HRs in 56 games but batted .348 with less than a K every 20 plate appearances, then skipped his senior season.  

Why?  I'm guessing he saw his age creeping up and figured it was time to go pro - another year and he would have been overly ripe, as he was 21.4 years old when he debuted in the Mets minors.

BUT WAIT!! WHAT?? No HRs in 204 college and Cape Cod games? 

With that unimpressive power record, the Mets draft him as a 2nd baseman in the 12th round, no doubt finally picking him due to his higher and climbing batting average as a junior (note: he also played a lot of outfield before being drafted.  Despite that, the Mets used him for just 61 innings in the outfield in his entire 430+ games in the minors, probably after he cajoled his skippers to allow him to).

In Kingsport in the the summer of 2013 after he got drafted, he hit a nifty .329 with no HRs in 47 games.

In 2014, he hits .292 with 3 HRs.  THREE!  Pop the champagne.

But in 2015, disappointingly back down to 1 HR, even while hitting .309.

OK, so the batting average was not bad at all, excellent actually, but by this time, in college and pro games, he has just 4 HRs in 491 games!  The stuff of Bud Harrelson. 

My guess here, too, is none of the 4 HRs were tape measure jobs.

At the end of 2015, I wrote that if skinny 6'1" 165 Jeff wanted success, bulking up would help - one such 2015 blurb is repeated here:

"MCNEIL: I thought he should have been co-MVP of the FSL with Smith.  McNeil played 119 games for St Lucie, .312/.373/.382 with 80 runs scored and 16 of 21 steals.  Only 59 Ks.  A whole lot to like.  Solid D.  Add some pop and his value will be indisputable." 

So bulk up he did, as I wrote a while later:

"He is smart - 'what do I need to do to make a weakness a strength?'  So he bulked up about 30 pounds from where he started as a pro, and I believe the power will move from low to moderate."

And he did add the beef - but he ended up with hernia and hip injuries, both of which required surgery and those together, along with other injuries, pretty much wiped out his 2016 and 2017 minor league seasons, playing just 51 games in 2 seasons...

BUT popping 5 HRs.  The extra strength was indeed showing results.

(Interestingly, his hitting style was impacted by a switch to a different bat. Wikipedia noted that "in 2016, McNeil began using an unorthodox knobless bat given to him by Mets minor league hitting coordinator Lamar Johnson; he thenceforth began using knobless bats exclusively.")

In 2018 in Binghamton and Vegas, he went on a power tear, hitting .342 with 19 HRs and 71 RBIs.  The transformation from "Little Bud" to "Big Thud" had fully taken hold.

The rest is history - the most recent history being a MLB batting title and a $50 million, 4 year deal (I know, don't forget the 5th year option).

What a great story.  

Shows what one can accomplish with a laser focus on lofty goals and sheer drive and dogged determination.

Of course, he could have held out for free agency, but he would have been 33, and 2 years further along into one's early 30s can be a declining period for many hitters and pitchers - if one studied that time period, one could come up with dozens of names where the age 31 and 32 seasons began gradual or sharp declines...he realized there was that downside risk, and grabbed this still-huge chunk of dough.  I'd have done 100% exactly the same.   That would have been my advice.  

Consider Matt Harvey at the end of 2015 and two years later...steep decline, and he got paid a fraction of what he would have earned had he negotiated an extension at the end of 2015.

If and when the baseball thing ends someday for Jeff, there is always pro golf, I'm guessing.  McNeil once shot a 59 which, for me, would be a good 9 hole score.  He shot 59 in 18 holes.  Who does that?  Had he decided on golf rather than baseball as a pro, though, maybe that venture would have failed and we'd have never seen Jeff McNeil as a pro sports success. 

Anyway...

Simply put, glad he's still on our side.

As what I think is an interesting point of comparison, former Mets pitcher Tyler Pill was quite the hitter, too, but for some reason, once he gave up pitching, couldn't emulate Jeff McNeil's hitting success.  

Pill in college (they actually probably played against one another in 2011 as they were in the same west coast college division in California that season - maybe McNeil even faced pitcher Pill) hit .323/.439/.455, also with a low K rate, basically hitting better than McNeil, and then hit .301/.358.408 in 245 minors plate appearances with just 35 Ks.  He also pitched very well while in college.

He was amazingly a .370 hitter in 103 at bats while playing for several seasons as a minor league pitcher, remarkable in that pitchers back then rarely got a chance to hit due to the DH, so he only hit sporadically.  How many players do you hear saying their timing is tough to nail down when they play sporadically?  Dom Smith, anyone?

After going 7 for 18 as a hitter at age 28 in the high minors, Pill dropped the pitching and hit just .233 in 31 games and 103 at bats in AAA at age 29, mostly in the outfield, and then hung up the spikes and headed back to school.  

I think he just started the hitter experiment too late at age 29.

I really wonder if he wished he had played right from the onset as a hitter, not a pitcher.  He ended up a decent 46-38, 4.23 in the minors but just 0-3, 5.32 in 22 innings as a Met, at age 27 in the majors.  If hitting and not pitching had been his total focus, like McNeil, might he have become a multi million $$ ballplayer as a hitter, too?  Or, might he have not been good enough and missed the majors altogether?

I think Pill could have been a 4th or 5th outfielder type in the majors, who could have pitched in a pinch, too.  But...we'll never know.