Nationwide League batting champion Jeff McNeil and the New York Mets agreed Friday to a four-year, $50 million contract extension, sources acquainted with the deal advised ESPN, guaranteeing one of many staff’s core gamers will stay in Queens because the Mets look to win their first World Sequence since 1986.

McNeil, who turns 31 every week after Opening Day, was scheduled to go to an arbitration trial with the Mets, the place he was requesting $7.75 million they usually supplied $6.25 million. As an alternative, the hole spurred conversations about maintaining McNeil previous his remaining two years of arbitration that landed on shopping for out a number of free agent seasons. The deal, which is pending a bodily, features a fifth-year membership choice that will take the overall worth to $63.75 million, sources advised ESPN.

As a result of McNeil wasn’t set to achieve free company till simply earlier than his age-33 season, the specter of groups penalizing him for his age, plus the market not essentially rewarding contact-oriented gamers, made the extension extra interesting.

McNeil actually is among the many preeminent bat-to-ball artists within the sport, hanging out solely 242 instances in 2,039 profession plate appearances — a strikeout price bettered by solely 9 gamers with a minimum of 1,000 plate appearances since McNeil’s 2018 debut.

Amongst these, solely Michael Brantley and Luis Arraez are in McNeil’s class as a hitter. McNeil has a profession .307 batting common — third behind Arraez and Freddie Freeman in that span. Even when energy is not an enormous a part of McNeil’s sport, he introduced loads of pop in 2022, hitting .326/.382/.454 with 39 doubles, 9 residence runs, 62 RBIs and simply 61 strikeouts in 589 instances on the plate.

McNeil’s versatility has proved necessary to the Mets all through his profession, as he usually moved amongst second base and the nook outfield spots. Although he performed a career-high 106 video games at second final season and was properly above common there, he additionally spent 47 video games within the outfield for a staff that gained 101 video games however misplaced to the San Diego Padres within the wild-card spherical.

As a result of the typical annual worth of the deal is $12.5 million, the Mets’ aggressive stability tax invoice will proceed to develop. Whereas the anticipated CBT hit was both of the arbitration numbers, McNeil’s new CBT quantity will mirror the AAV — and immediate a 90% tax on the $4.25 million-to-$5.75 million overage.

The Mets’ new projected payroll plus tax is round $467 million, which might smash the main league file.

For the Mets, the financial savings in future years may very well be properly well worth the penalty. In his 5 large league seasons, McNeil has produced greater than 16 wins above alternative, and his ability set tends to age properly. However the risk that batting averages may choose up with the implementation of a pitch clock and a ban on defensive shifts may make McNeil’s ability set much less distinctive.

In fact, McNeil’s batting common may tick up too, and other than his anomalous .251 in 2021, his season numbers are .329, .318, .311 and .326. He’s anticipated to be a part of an infield in 2022 that features first baseman Pete Alonso, shortstop Francisco Lindor — with whom he had an notorious dugout incident in 2021, although they’ve since made up — and a few mixture of Eduardo Escobar, Luis Guillorme and rookie Brett Baty at third base.