It sounds like the NY Mets wanted Jeff McNeil replaced for a very specific reason

Will Sammon’s latest juicy story for The Athletic covered multiple aspects of the New York Mets offseason with a lot of information about their pursuit of Bo Bichette. He was an early second base target of theirs before the trade for Marcus Semien. Thereafter, he was a consideration for third base.

One person they never considered for second base was Jeff McNeil. The longtime second baseman/utility man lost favor with the front office for what we can assume was a variety of reasons. From his relationship with shortstop Francisco Lindor to his defense at second base which wasn’t always the best but served them fine, it does seem like the latter was one of the bigger reasons as to why they were eager to move on.

The Mets were so ready to never see McNeil at second base they had Luisangel Acuna and free agent Isiah Kiner-Falefa as options they were strongly considering. Both play defense well and that’s about it.

A defensive improvement seemed to be the reason why the Mets wanted to move on from Jeff McNeil

After trading Brandon Nimmo and passing on Pete Alonso in free agency, the Mets’ next obvious move was to trade away McNeil. They found a taker in the Athletics who’ll pick up a large portion of his salary this year. The Mets received a low-level prospect in return. The layers to this trade are deep.

If we want to believe all of the locker room discourse, there’s that. Having a disgruntled veteran on the roster who can’t buy playing time is another assumption we can come to about McNeil. If he had stuck around, it would have been on a part-time basis.

Steve Cohen’s wallet could orbit the moon and yet he’d like to save the money whenever he can. The Mets are now a better team as a result of it with the whole crux of the “why” being how much they valued improving defense up the middle.

David Stearns didn’t have to get some secret book from Stiffler’s older brother to learn how valuable that is. It’s an old-school style of thinking he truly covets.

Far too many defensive upgrades at second base were available this offseason with even guys like Brendan Donovan, Ketel Marte, and a few others as known Mets targets. McNeil never stood a chance at sticking around if Acuna was even a consideration.