jeff mcneil mets
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Tuesday was a great day for Mets second baseman Jeff McNeil and his family. His four-year, $50 million extension became official and he spoke with the media about it. Among the many things discussed, he provided an update on a promise Francisco Lindor made to him last season.

McNeil entered the 2022 season coming off an incredibly disappointing campaign. Between 2018 and 2020, the Flying Squirrel hit .319/.383/.501, which led to a 140 wRC+ and .884 OPS. His 2021 performance included a .251/.319/.360 line, a 92 wRC+, and a .679 OPS.

Obviously, he bounced back in a big way. McNeil slashed .326/.382/.454 with a 143 wRC+, .836 OPS, and a career-high 5.9 fWAR on his way to winning the National League batting title. His individual accolades included a trip to the All-Star Game, a Silver Slugger Award, and a 15th-place finish in NL MVP voting.

Way back at the beginning of May, Lindor made a bet with McNeil. The shortstop promised that if his teammate won the batting title, he’d buy him a car. At the time this was reported (May 5th), McNeil was hitting .348. That had him tied with Nolan Arenado for fourth in the National League. He trailed Eric Hosmer (.376), Manny Machado (.374), and Josh Bell (.356).

We know the rest of the story. A war of attrition commenced and McNeil ended up on top. And not just in the National League. No qualifying hitter in MLB finished 2022 with a higher batting average than him.

So, did he get his car from Lindor? Not yet, but the second baseman is giving his teammate some ideas:

These two have come a long way from the rat-ratcoon incident, haven’t they?

One has to imagine Lindor already has a car picked out for McNeil, or he was waiting for the batting champ to send over some ideas. This seems like the perfect kind of thing to happen during Spring Training while the boys are down in Port St. Lucie.

Lindor initially said he didn’t promise what kind of car he’d buy for McNeil. However, the shortstop is the highest-paid player in Mets history and will be making more than $30 million in 2023. It may not be the type of car Yoenis Cespedes liked to pull into the parking lot with, but it’s not going to be a clunker, folks.

Matt Musico can be reached at [email protected] and you can follow him on Twitter: @mmusico8.

Matt Musico is an editor for ESNY. He’s been writing about baseball and the Mets for the past decade. His work has been featured on numberFire, MetsMerized Online, Bleacher Report, and Yahoo! Sports.