Hearing Voices

[metirish]

 

 

 

[metirish]

 

 

 

[A Boy Named Seo]

I don't know much about the dude, but experience in scouting and the front office, and a previous working relationship with Stearns? This all sounds pretty good. 

[MFS62]

Still no word on whether he is a "baseball guy" or another metrics maven.

Later

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Played baseball at Trinity College where he got an economics degree

[Frayed Knot]

18 minutes ago, MFS62 said:

Still no word on whether he is a "baseball guy" or another metrics maven.

It doesn't have to be an either/or situation.

[MFS62]

If they could find a guy who has both, that would be great.

But when the announcement was made, it said they wanted to bring in more "baseball guys". That made me think they realize they have enough numbers guys. If this person is both, I hope he would lean more toward the "baseball guy" side to make those numbers more useful.

Later.

[Centerfield]

On 9/22/2026 at 4:32 PM, Gwreck said:

I just realized the McNeil deal wasn’t on any list.  

McNeil was replacement-level this year (slightly better offensively and slightly worse defensively than Semien), and the Mets saved $10M by sending him to Oakland…so this move is “neutral?”  

(I suppose it’s tough to look at the deal in a vacuum.  If the Mets had not traded Nimmo for Semien…and still shipped out McNeil…and thus played Baty everyday at third (with Bichette at second) things would have been slightly better on the whole, at least from a defensive perspective.)

Forgot about Jeff too. Yeah. I guess this is a neutral move. Would you rather pay $15.75M for a 0.5, .678 OPS, or would you rather save $10M and send him to play elsewhere. In isolation it’s hard to gauge. 
 

With context, it’s a terrible move. The Mets traded Nimmo for Semien. For reasons I already stated, I think that trade was a loss. But now figure. Because you have to play Semien, you have to unload McNeil. 
 

So 2B costs you $26M to Semien, plus the $5.75M paid out on McNeil, plus the $6M paid out on Nimmo. $37.5 for Semien, who ended up being worse than McNeil. 
 

And because you traded Nimmo, you have to replace his production in the lineup. Which is why you sign Jorge Polanco. 
 

A parade of bad moves. All beginning with a terrible trade. 

[Gwreck]

They’re bad moves but that’s no excuse for bad math.

You can’t count the McNeil money as a new cost (since it was already sunk); and in fact dropping some was actually a savings as discussed.  Nor is it correct to add money associated with the Nimmo deal when the trade was a net savings.

 

[Centerfield]

There’s bad opinions but there’s no excuse for bad logic. A sunk cost is money that is already spent for which the returns are unrecoverable. McNeil was not a sunk cost. He was a useful player. 1.9 WAR in 2025 with a .742 OPS. There was reason to believe he would be productive in 2026. And although he had a down year from the year before, the Mets would still have gotten better production out of him than they did from Semien. 

McNeil’s salary was rendered a sunk cost by trading for a worse, more expensive player on a bad contract that you are forced to play every day in McNeil’s position.

 

[Gwreck]

McNeil was clearly declining.  His OPS dropped from .836 in .2022 to .692 in 2024 and his 2025 was a bounceback but not dramatically so.  His best skill, slapping the ball around the shift, was sapped by the rule change.

Projecting for 2026 only (because there was never any chance the Mets would exercise the option on him), it was perfectly reasonable to expect that Semien would have a better season than McNeil.  (In hindsight:  it’s not dramatically different, although Semien’s disastrous decline in defense makes him slightly worse).

In a world in which the Mets never make the Nimmo for Semien trade, they still have every reason to trade McNeil, whether to open a spot for Baty to play everyday or because they trade for Brandon Lowe or whatever other move they make, or even just because the rumor is true it that McNeil was an asshole and problem in the clubhouse.

[Centerfield]

I don’t see how you can say he was clearly declining. He raised his OPS 50 points from the year before and was projected to have 1.8 WAR by fangraphs.  OPS in the .730s. The McNeil contract wasn’t a plus, but it wasn’t a problem. 
 

The trade for Semien, which I feel was problematic on its own, had the added effect of rendering the McNeil contract redundant. That’s why I’m saying on its own, the McNeil dump is fine. It was intended to save $10M and it did just that. But in context, the other moves required us to dump the McNeil contract rather than getting any value from it. 
 

I was hoping that the tough hitting environment in Texas would lead to a bounce back for Semien. We now know that it didn’t happen. 
 

The three guys we lost were each better than their replacements. They were also less expensive. Was the long term flexibility worth the short term hit?  I think clearly not. 

[Marshmallowmilkshake]

I suspect McNeil's personality and inability to get along with Lindor and perhaps others played a role in his departure. 

Semien's been worse than expected, but I really believe the main goal was to get out from under Nimmo's longer contract and free up space for Benge. Nimmo has been in decline and wasn't going to get better while clogging up an outfield spot. They took on a shorter bad contract to get someone to take Nimmo's. They were probably giddy someone said yes. 

I'm not saying the trade was great. But there were probably other goals that aren't measured in the statistics. 

 

[Benjamin Grimm]

That was the stated goal of the Nimmo-Semien trade, but it was a weird move to make in a season in which you hope to contend. It may have reduced the payroll, but it also hurt the team on the field, and I don't think any of us were surprised that Semien wasn't as good as Nimmo.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

I got no problem with the Zimmo trade. The contract length and expected defensive upgrade were positives. He was a MVP candidate a few years ago so you knew he had ability to do better offensively, he just didn't. 

[Centerfield]

Yeah. My intent wasn’t to relitigate the entire Nimmo trade again. Just to show how that move had an effect on McNeil. 
 

In any case, I think we can all agree that the benefit now is that there’s only $46M left on the Semien deal vs $82M for Nimmo. We took a big hit this year, but if you’re going to take a hit, maybe it’s best that it happened in the same year Soto and Lindor missed bit chunks of time, Polanco was hurt, Robert was hurt, Holmes was hurt, Bichette sucked, three guys in the rotation sucked, and the original Baby Mets sucked. 

[Frayed Knot]

Trade options for Nimmo trade were probably also very limited. He had full N-T protection so could have vetoed any deal he didn't like. What made Texas attractive -- possibly what made Only Texas (and probably Houston) attractive -- was that the NImmo clan had recently pulled up stakes in Wyoming and relocated to Austin. Without that side benefit of having family within reasonable reach, It's possible Brandon would have put the kibosh on deals with some of all of the 28 non-Lone Star State clubs.

[Gwreck]

Nimmo discussed the no trade clause a little in a pregame interview with Steve Gelbs earlier this week.  He used the analogy of divorce:  if one partner says they want a divorce, it’s hard to come back and say no, we should stay together.