This was supposed to be the year of the New York Mets. In 2024, the Amazin’s amazed the baseball world and their own fans by making a run all the way to the National League Championship Series where they came within two wins of knocking off the eventual World Series-winning Los Angeles Dodgers and advancing to the World Series themselves. Since its founding as an expansion team in 1962, the Mets franchise has played in five World Series but won just two, in 1969 and 1986.
Last year’s thrilling postseason run came after a season when the Mets won 89 games and tied with the Philadelphia Phillies for second place in the NL East. But they edged past the Milwaukee Brewers 2-1 in a best-of-three Wild Card playoff, then stunned the Phillies in the Division Series taking the best-of-five matchup in four games, before facing the Dodgers.
It was a surprising and memorable season for the Mets. But not memorable enough. The organization entered 2025 determined to build on the foundation of the previous year, and to take it further. No single move more clearly signaled the Mets’ intentions than the dramatic signing of the most coveted free agent at least since Bryce Harper hit the open market in 2019.
Mets Spring Training Has Been a Brutal One
Harper eneded up signing what just six years ago was jaw-dropping, record-setting contract with the Phillies, for $330 million over 13 years. But the Mets’ signing of generational slugger Juan Soto left that one in the dust. The Flushing Meadows-based club lured Soto away from the New York Yankees with a 15-year, $765 million deal.
The Mets approached the upcoming season with high ambitions and big dreams. And then Spring Training came along.
The Mets have quickly watched their hoped-for dream season turn into a struggle as four key players went down with injuries that threaten the team’s season, at least at the start. As of Thursday, the Mets made that five key players, adding two-time All-Star second baseman and 2022 NL batting champ Jeff McNeil to the casualty rolls. According to Mets MLB.com beat writer Anthony DiComo, “McNeil has a low-grade right oblique strain.”
Mets manager Carlos Mendoza told reporters Thursday morning that McNeil will miss “three to four weeks,” and will be shut down from baseball activities for at least a week and possibly 10 days.
The McNeil injury comes exactly two weeks before the Mets are scheduled to open their 2025 campaign on the road against the Houston Astros. The Mets’ home opener comes eight days after that, when they host the Toronto Blue Jays. McNeil will miss both occasions.
From 12th-Round Draft Pick to NL Batting Champ
McNeil, who will turn 33 years old on April 8, was the Mets 12th-round draft pick out of Cal State Long Beach, 356th overall, in 2013 â which would indicate that the Mets did not see him as more than filler for their minor league rosters. But he posted respectable numbers at each minor league level until breaking out in 2018 when he earned a call-up to the Major League club by posting OPS numbers of 1.029 for the Double-A Binghamton Rumble Ponies, then 1.028 when he was promoted to the Triple-A Las Vegas 51s.
He made his big league debut on July 24, 2018, placing sixth in NL Rookie of the Year balloting that year and becoming an All-Star in 2019. McNeil was again named an All-Star in 2022, a year that he won the NL batting title with a .326 average.
Now, however, McNeil joins catcher Francisco Alvarez, newly acquired infielder Nick Madrigal, and pitchers Frankie Montas â another offseason signing â and Sean Manaea on the injured list to start the season. At least one of those players, Madrigal, will be out for all of 2025.
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