It became known before the holidays that the New York Mets were going to try and trade Jeff McNeil once the lockout is over. There are a lot of reasons why that may or may not be a good idea for them but the big detail there is “after the lockout”. We don’t know exactly when that will be but the Chicago White Sox needs to consider it when the time comes.
McNeil is coming off of a down year with the Mets but has had some really good ones before that. In 2021, he slashed .251/.319/.360 with seven home runs, 35 RBIs, and 48 runs scored. His OPS of .679 was the worst that he has had in his career up to this point by far so you can assume it will come back up in 2022. It was as high as .916 in 2019 when he was an NL All-Star.
If they can unlock the Jeff McNeil that existed before the 2021 year, they would be getting a borderline star player. Things went bad for basically every Mets player in 2021 so it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. The White Sox should really consider him to be their new second baseman via trade. He could also play left and third from time to time which adds to his value.
Craig Kimbrel was a disaster for the White Sox after coming over from the Chicago Cubs but they didn’t use him right. If he went to the Mets and became a closer again instead of a setup man, he might get back to his Hall of Fame form.
The Chicago White Sox and New York Mets could make a Jeff McNeil trade.
The White Sox and Mets might be able to make a baseball trade with these two. Each of them has shown flashes of stardom in recent years but both struggled at times in 2021. If they wanted to make a swap, one of these three trades would make sense: