I don't buy #5 as an excuse. If a trade was IMMINENT you keep him out the lineup that day, but this is still a pennant race and with the game on the line in the 9th inning if he is still on the roster, which he was, he is hitting there. Not buying #6 either. Nido's career is best defined as prolonged slump. a slumping McNeil still should hit there. it needs to be injury related. yeah. he'd have been traded by now if it was #5, or at least, we'd have news. Again I ain't either saying what it, or what it isn't, I'm only trying to get a handle on the many things it could be. And I haven't crossed any off the list, what I want is more of them. And "we'd have heard about 5" does seem awfully likely, but: --Cohen is the richest guy in the world and one reason he's the richest guy in the world is that, at some level, directly AND indirectly, it's hard to become the richest guy in the world without also being exceptionally good at "knowing something the others don't know" and keeping secrets if only for his personal safety, much less something as inconsequential as a baseball trade. --It takes two to trade "he'd be traded already," well only if the other tem had agreed or not agreed at the time that potential AB came up. For all we know at that moment, Billy is about to close a deal but something came-on either side, or with anyone else who might be involved. --And the obvious, right? Any trade involving a starting all star is going be a giant one, and also, a complicated giant one Also not saying 6 is or isn't a thing, but it's quite possible theoretically, that through technology or whatever they've identified what they believe is at the heart of McNeil's "slumping," AND McNeil knows this as well, but he's just hasn't demonstrated to have "corrected" for that to anyone's satisfaction yet. Why couldn't that be a thing? Swings and timing are complicated things, that's why only super athletes can do them