The Mets must see the vultures circling in the air if Jeff McNeil indeed is going to be traded. Why would they even think it…

The Mets have to be joking. Jeff McNeil is the best hitter on the team, and one of the best in baseball.

He climbs out of bed in the morning, spraying line drives. He plays the game like a runaway locomotive – a boy having fun in the sun.

McNeil requires no special attention. Wind him up, hand him a glove, and point to where you want him to play that day.

The Mets would play around with that?

And the Mets are sincerely listening to offers from teams calling on him?

“Many teams” have recently inquired about trading for Jeff McNeil, reports Tim Healey of Newsday, who says the Mets have so far resisted including McNeil in any serious trade discussions.

Have the Mets gone mad? Or is this a case of a loose-lipped assistant to the assistant of an assistant general manager trying to make “an in” with a reporter?

Surely, this can’t be a part of Brodie Van Wagenen’s plan for the Mets. Can it?

Jeff McNeil – The best bargain in baseball

Jeff McNeil might be the best bargain in baseball right now.

At 27, McNeil is under Mets control until 2025. He made the major league minimum in 2019 ($567,000).

Depending on how generous the Mets care to be, a well-deserved bump is in order, perhaps to $1,250,000.

The same situation will exist next year when assuming McNeil remains the hit machine he is, his salary might go up to $2 million.

After that, it’s three full seasons of arbitration before McNeil is eligible for free agency – when he will be 32 – which is not a desirable age to be in the open market.

So, if anyone can explain the logic of trading Jeff McNeil, please raise your hand.

The keyword in that sentence is, of course, logic.

Value for value only

We know that to get something of value in any trade, you have to give something of value.

Let’s suppose then the Mets have a deal in the making to acquire Francisco Lindor from the Cleveland Indians – and they insist on getting McNeil back as part of the trade.

Now that’s something to think about. But that’s far different than “shopping” McNeil if that’s indeed what the Mets are doing.

Even so, in Dominic Smith, J.D. Davis, and Brandon Nimmo, the Mets have a good start in putting together a deal, even for someone with the All-Star status of Lindor without the need to include McNeil.

That would be the job of Van Wagenen to make it happen – if a deal of great magnitude was in play. Van Wagen appears to pooh-pooh the talk in this story by Danny Abriano for SNY-TV:

Danny Abriano, SNY-TV “Some of those reports are more about which team liked our players and which players were of high priority to them,” Van Wagenen said. “McNeil, based on what he did last year and on what we needed in the lineup this year, continuing to try to create bat-to-ball contact as opposed to relying solely on the home run — it was something that we really never wanted to lose or give up in any deal this offseason.”

We’ll take him at his word. But we can only hope this isn’t like the persistent boy asking a girl to the prom while she resists time and again until she finally says, Sure, why not?

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