Unknown Mets minor leaguers will need to wait for their “Jeff McNeil Year”

With no 2020 minor league baseball season, there’s no chance to see an unknown New York Mets minor leaguer have a “Jeff McNeil Year.”

A few years have gone by since the New York Mets had one of the better minor league systems in baseball. There’s a reason for this. The team has been focused on winning at the major league level which has meant lower draft picks and trading away of some of their top farmhands.

While this has rubbed some people the wrong way, something we can agree on favorably is how many of their minor leaguers have successfully graduated to the everyday lineup. Most notably, over the last two years, we have seen Pete Alonso and Jeff McNeil become All-Stars.

It wasn’t completely unexpected to see Alonso slug a whole lot of home runs. He was a second-round pick. It’s not unfathomable for a guy to sneak through the first round and then have a legendary rookie campaign.

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McNeil is a different story. Nobody saw him coming in 2018. Since arriving in the major leagues in July of that year, he has been nothing short of amazing.

A part of baseball I adore is how underdogs can triumph. It’s not as likely in other sports. Dig through past drives in the NBA, NFL, and NHL and you won’t find nearly as many stars drafted later on. MLB is different. The draft is far more impossible to predict and because it takes years to make it to the highest level, some fall off while others grow into their talents.

There won’t be any minor league baseball season in 2020 which means there is no opportunity to see another McNeil rise up. That possibility has evaporated. We’ll need to wait at least one more year before an unknown Mets minor leaguer has what I call a “Jeff McNeil Year.”

McNeil wasn’t on anyone’s radar when he lit up minor league pitchers back in 2018. For me to even try predicting who might become the next version of the Flying Squirrel would be an exhaustive exercise with no real value.

I would have more luck predicting the stock market or trying to figure out what’s wrong with my wife when she says “I’m fine.”

Something I do know is that deep down somewhere on the farm is another McNeil. He might not be as good. He may not even last very long in the big leagues. The guy with the next Jeff McNeil Year might just be a middle reliever who will have a single triumphant year in the big leagues.

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By definition, a Jeff McNeil Year is any where a minor leaguer few are familiar with shines so brought that he’s able to climb up from obscurity and onto the big league roster.