Three Trends to Watch With Jeff McNeil In 2021
It’s been fun watching the New York Mets be among the most active MLB teams so far this offseason. Granted, it hasn’t been hard to claim that title, but it’s still fun, especially since they don’t appear to be done yet.
They’re reportedly finalists for reliever Brad Hand, George Springer wants to play near his native Connecticut, and there’s still some roster filling/depth moves to make prior to Opening Day. With everything that’s going on, it can be easy to forget about the solid dudes already donning the orange and blue, like New York’s human hit machine, Jeff McNeil. Since debuting in July of 2018, McNeil’s 8.4 fWAR is among the top-20 position players in baseball.
Let’s take a second to appreciate the man’s consistency, too. While his Isolated Power has gone on a bit of a roller coaster the past three seasons (.142, .214, and .142), the rest of his offensive profile hasn’t changed a whole lot. For instance, his wRC+ has gone from 137 to 143 to 130, while his OPS has gone from .852 to .916 to .836.
As we look ahead to 2021 — a year in which McNeil may actually be able to settle in at one position for the majority of his season — here are three things to keep an eye on.
Improvements in Chase Rate
If there’s another thing that hasn’t changed for McNeil since making his big-league debut, it’s his willingness to be aggressive in the batter’s box. Since July of 2018, his 58.3% swing rate is the highest in baseball among qualified hitters. He can do that, though, because his 12.0% strikeout rate and 82.7% contact rate are both above average when compared to others, as well.
With a high overall swing rate, his chase rate is bound to be high, and it is. However, things began going back in the right direction during 2020’s shortened season. And yes, we don’t want to draw any hard conclusions from 60 games, but we could see a slight shift in his approach. McNeil’s overall chase rate has gone on the same roller coaster as his ISO (35.3%, 41.7%, and 38.5%). What I enjoyed seeing, though, was how his chase rate for each pitch he faced progressed from the year prior.
The below table shows that progression, along with how his swing rate on strikes changed:
It’s great to see some notable improvement against certain pitches, like sliders, changeups, and sinkers. Plus, we can hope McNeil’s chase rate against curveballs will follow suit soon enough. Being slightly more selective has helped both his walk rate and strikeout rate:
It’d be awesome to see his walk rate out-pace his strikeout rate in 2021, along with seeing how that’d impact other areas of his batted-ball profile.
Results on Ground Balls
McNeil’s 2019 power surge led to producing quite well overall when hitting fly balls — he posted a 161 wRC+ for that batted-ball event. However, the home-run rate drop of 2020 led to a fly-ball wRC+ of 79. He also saw a substantial drop in line-drive wRC+ (348 in ’19 to 252 in ’20).
So, if his overall offensive production didn’t change much, that means he had more luck when hitting ground balls. After posting a 64 wRC+ for this situation in 2019, that number jumped up to 114. This happened despite both his soft-hit rate (11.8% to 16.9%) and hard-hit rate (30.1% to 25.4%) getting worse.
What has stayed consistent over the past two years is his pull rate on grounders, which settled in 59.1% in ‘19 and 57.7% in ‘20. The most interesting part is that McNeil’s ground-ball slugging percentage this past year was .423 — a full 100 points higher than it was in 2019. This was the result of accumulating five ground-ball doubles in just 71 plate appearances (he recorded six such doubles through 186 plate appearances in ‘19).
Performance vs. Breaking Pitches
Despite going on a season-saving surge in September, McNeil had a rough time with breaking pitches this past year. After posting a 112 wRC+ in 2019 against sliders, that number dropped all the way down to -7. As for curveballs, that number dropped from 180 to 69 (nice).
When looking back over his first two years in the big leagues, those are offerings he handled rather easily. It’ll be crucial for him to get back on track from a power perspective in these situations. Eight of his 23 homers from 2019 came off one of these two pitches, but he hit just one over the fence off a breaking ball in 2020.
It’ll be interesting to see how McNeil’s spot in the lineup will impact the pitch mix he ultimately faces moving forward. If he bats second — like how Roster Resource is currently projecting it — he may continue seeing more breaking balls. The last thing opposing pitchers will want to do is let the Mets’ table-setters reach base behind a deep lineup, which includes some guy named Francisco Lindor immediately protecting him in the three-spot.
Looking Ahead
According to FanGraphs’ Steamer projections, McNeil’s expected triple-slash (.286/.353/.455) and wRC+ (115) are a little conservative after taking recent results into consideration. However, they’re still pinning the 28-year-old for 3.3 fWAR and 19 home runs over the course of a full season (which we’ll hopefully witness). From the looks of it, his chances of continuing the offensive consistency he’s shown over his first three big-league seasons is good. The only remaining question at this point will be how he’ll eventually reach those numbers once again.