You can blame the Mets for a lot of things but you can't blame them for "holding" Mcneil back. In fact, whatever they did with him worked.
From 2013 to 2015 Mcneil spent the equivalent of 2 1/2 seasons in the minors. While he did average right at .300 in those seasons he had no power at all only managing 4 homeruns in 287 games.
The next 2 years were lost to injuries as he only played in 3 games in 2016 and 48 games in 2017.
Whatever he or they did in the offseason worked as he was a terror that finally had some pop in 2018.
In AA ball he hit 14 homers in 57 games while batting .327. That earned him a fast promotion to AAA ball where he tore the cover off the ball in the 31 games he was there at a .368 pace with 5 more bombs.
From there he joined the Mets at midseason and hasn't looked back and I don't expect him to.
How much faster were they supposed to get him up? Congratulations to the Mets, they got one right.
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