Mets' David Stearns makes MVP case for Francisco Lindor
Francisco Lindor of the Mets smiles during pregame warm-ups against the the Boston Red Sox at Citi Field on Tuesday. Credit: Errol Anderson
In David Stearns’ job as the Mets’ president of baseball operations, assessing value is kind of the whole thing.
Which potential offseason addition is worth what size contract? Who would offer the most as a member of the roster? Are any players deserving of long-term deals?
This season has yielded another Mets-centric, value-related question: What does the most valuable player in the league look like?
“I think he looks like the guy who runs out to shortstop every day at 7 o’clock,” Stearns said.
He smiled at the witty way to provide the easy answer, vouching for his team’s best player, Francisco Lindor, to be the NL MVP.
Consider this a fun subplot to the Mets’ playoff chase. With less than a month to go, Lindor isn’t the favorite. That unofficial honor goes to Shohei Ohtani, the Dodgers’ two-way star who in his year off from pitching is on track for an unprecedented 50-homer/50-steal season. But Lindor is putting together a compelling case.
Heading into the Mets’ game against the Red Sox on Tuesday, he was slashing.271/.342/.493 with 29 home runs, 25 steals, 81 RBIs and 36 doubles, plus high-end defense at a key position.
It may well be the best season of Lindor’s career, comparable with his 2018 with Cleveland. His 7 Wins Above Replacement, as calculated by FanGraphs, put him in the position player top 10 for a single season in Mets history.
“It’s been an unbelievable season to watch,” Stearns said. “We’re getting to the point where we’re talking about perhaps the greatest individual position player season in the history of this franchise.
“I’ve been around some really special seasons. I’ve been around some MVP seasons. This is right up there with anything I’ve seen on a day-to-day basis.”
As manager Carlos Mendoza put it recently: “He needs to be in the conversation. He's right there with anybody in the league.”
Foremost among the best seasons Stearns has watched up close: Christian Yelich’s 2018 NL MVP campaign with the Brewers (plus his second-place follow-up in 2019). Stearns also was with Milwaukee for Corbin Burnes’ NL Cy Young season in 2021 and Houston for Dallas Keuchel’s AL Cy Young season in 2015.
An extra layer in Lindor’s valuable presence, Stearns said, is his leadership.
“That’s part of the entire package that he brings,” Stearns said. “It’s easy to quantify what he does on the field, and that’s really impressive. Much harder to quantify the impact he has both by what he says and also by how he acts.”
Waiting on Senga
A day after Kodai Senga said he would be down to return as a reliever in the final days of the regular season, Stearns was noncommittal, preferring a wait-and-see approach as Senga tries to come back from a left calf strain.
“Step one is let’s get him on a mound and to a place where we feel like he’s healthy enough to compete at the major-league level,” Stearns said. “Then we’ll tackle the role. Whether it’s bullpen, whether it’s starter, whether it’s a couple of innings at the front of the game — if we’re making those decisions, I’m really happy to be making those decisions, so that we can have a healthy Kodai Senga.”
Senga has pitched in one game this season because of shoulder, triceps and leg injuries.
More confidence in Alvarez
Stearns joined Mendoza in offering a vote of confidence to struggling catcher Francisco Alvarez, who was batting .150 with a .419 OPS in 35 games since the All-Star break.
Alvarez was back in the lineup Tuesday after a two-game absence that Mendoza hoped would serve as “a little bit of a break and a reset.”
“Every player goes through this,” Stearns said. “And young players certainly go through this. I think given the success that Alvy had in his first season in the big leagues and at periods this year, it’s easy to forget how young this player is and how much we have asked of him as an organization.
“I have a ton of confidence that Alvy is going to snap out of this and help us this year and for years to come.”
GM or no GM?
The Mets have operated without a named general manager — in their arrangement, the would-be No. 2 baseball official under Stearns — since Billy Eppler left last October amid MLB’s investigation into his injured-list rule-breaking.
Stearns, who has left open the possibility that he'll hire a GM, said he has not decided whether to do so.
“I’m going to tackle that one in the offseason,” he said. “I’ve had enough to keep me busy on a daily basis that I haven’t given it significant thought at this point."
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
