Maybe the Mets found Jeff McNeil’s replacement - and maybe they found him a little too well.
For a while, McNeil was the former New York Mets player the club seemed most intent on moving past. Pete Alonso can wait.
McNeil was the one they actually had a plan for, and they followed through by sending him to the Athletics. The return was a teenage prospect who has barely played professionally, and the deal functioned mostly as a salary dump with A’s taking on most of the money.
That move made sense as an exit ramp from a declining utility player whose .300 days were gone. The next step was supposed to be Brett Baty sliding into the super utility role, and in a way, that part has worked - if McNeil’s 2024-2025 production is the benchmark.
McNeil put up a .718 OPS across those two seasons. Baty, meanwhile, has a .662 OPS in 2026. The Mets will likely frame that as progress for a left-handed hitter who was once one of the sport’s top prospects, but the numbers still say he’s not giving them what McNeil once did, even in decline.
The resemblance is hard to miss, though. Baty doesn’t bring McNeil’s output, but the shape of the player looks familiar: limited power, not much on the bases, and a defensive profile that fits some spots better than others. That’s why the comparison sticks.
Even late in his Mets run, McNeil still put the ball in play. Baty has struck out 26.7% of the time this season. McNeil’s 14.4% strikeout rate in 2024 was the worst of his big league career.
The financial gap tells its own story. McNeil is making $15.75 million this year.
Baty is earning $750,000 before agent fees. That’s the price tag on the difference between their OPS numbers, or at least close enough to make the point plain.
Baty hasn’t had a standout season. He’s swapped some home run power for doubles, the walks took forever to arrive, and the strikeouts have climbed.
As a 10th man on a big league roster, that’s workable. As an everyday utility option, the results across multiple seasons just haven’t been strong enough.
And there’s no real argument that the Mets were wrong to move McNeil in the offseason. With the A’s, he’s hitting .270/.317/.373 while playing about half the time in a hitter-friendly setting. His home-road split hardly changes, either: a .694 OPS in Sacramento and a .687 OPS away.
The biggest difference is simple. McNeil once performed at an All-Star level, and the Mets spent the last few years trying to get that player back.
With Baty, they’re still waiting to see if that version ever shows up. In the end, the switch from McNeil to Baty brought savings and a lower ceiling, but also the uneasy possibility that Baty’s best may land right around McNeil’s worst.
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