Jeff McNeil’s milestone reminds NY Mets fans of two important details from his era

Jeff McNeil blooped a hit into left field on Sunday against the Boston Red Sox. Why care? It was the 1,000th time in his MLB career he managed to pick up a hit. A once beloved member of the New York Mets whose stay in Flushing went south in latter years, he wasn’t the only ex of ours to reach this same milestone in 2026.

Pete Alonso picked up hit number 1,000 this year with the Baltimore Orioles as did Brandon Nimmo as a member of the Texas Rangers. All homegrown Mets players drafted by the organization and adored by fans at certain points, each was apparently only a single year away from becoming the 10th player in Mets history to have 1,000 hits with the club.

All three picking up the same achievement in the same year with all of the circumstances surrounding the 2026 Mets remind us of two very distinct points. The first is how good we had it with individual players over the last few seasons. The other is how little the team was able to achieve even with these all-time franchise greats.

It was a golden era for individual Mets players, a grey one for the team

There was only a short period of time when Alonso, McNeil, and Nimmo all played together. Alonso was the last to debut in 2019, a half year after McNeil in 2018. Nimmo was the longest tenured of the three, contributing as a part-timer beginning in 2016. It wasn’t until the 2019 season when the trio began their journey as regulars together.

Unfortunately, it never amounted to much. A playoff appearance in 2022 and again in 2024 was it. Hardly their fault alone, the lack of success they had as teammates grinds the reputation of these three to a halt.

A rare Mets home run title from Alonso as a rookie and McNeil following it up with only the second NL batting title by a Mets player ever in 2022, the individual achievements were plentiful. Alonso broke every franchise home run record while Nimmo was more of a stabilizer who was never an All-Star or MVP candidate and yet a quality hitter used everywhere from leadoff to clean-up for a good chunk of his stay.

All briskly sent away by choice in the same winter, their era is a complicated one and not in a Francisco Lindor vs. Juan Soto kind of way. High-performers who ranked 15th (Nimmo), 17th (Alonso), and 18th (McNeil) in bWAR in team history with Mike Piazza sprinkled in the missing 16th spot, they all get lumped into the same narrative. They were three really good players who didn’t win or even come close to the ultimate prize.

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