Mets' Francisco Lindor in it for long haul, and he believes in club's vision
New York Mets infielder Francisco Lindor during a spring training workout, Thursday Feb. 15, 2024 in Port St. Lucie FL. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla.
Francisco Lindor arrived in Flushing for Season One of what owner Steve Cohen imagined would be a three- to five-year path to a World Series crown. By signing a record 10-year, $341 million contract, Lindor seemed as much Cohen’s business partner as the Mets’ shortstop.
Despite both investing plenty in the future of the team during the turbulent times that followed — Cohen’s billions, Lindor’s elite talents — the Mets don’t feel any closer to that elusive title as they enter Season Four of this relationship. Lindor is on his third manager and fourth general manager after watching the roster turn over again during a trade deadline fire sale.
The only thing Lindor knows for sure? He’s the lone fixture in Flushing. Whatever is built going forward, he remains the foundation. And the signs point to Lindor being a solid investment in that regard, specifically as the Mets try to get back on the “championship-caliber” track currently being laid by the new president of baseball operations, David Stearns.
Stearns spoke frequently with Lindor this winter, recognizing that the dynamic between the front office and its most high-profile star is a “marriage” with the Mets’ best interests at stake. And after Lindor’s bumpy introduction to New York, featuring the rat-raccoon follies and the thumbs-down fiasco, he’s grown into more of a North Star for the franchise, taking on a de facto captain’s role through both his on-field leadership and his front-facing media duties.
Among the first to arrive at Clover Park, Lindor revealed Thursday that he played all of last season, a total of 160 games, with a painful bone spur impacting his right elbow. He said the issue first developed on “Day 5” of spring training but that he refused to have X-rays or an MRI, choosing to play through the managed discomfort instead.
“I kind of had an idea of what was happening,” Lindor said. “Throughout the year, it got heavier and heavier, but it’s part of being a professional athlete. You have your aches and pains here and there.”
Getting hurt is an occupational hazard. Staying in the lineup is where being a “professional” comes in, and Lindor still posted a 31-homer, 31-stolen base season, good enough to earn the Silver Slugger and a ninth-place finish in the NL MVP voting.
Lindor powered through despite the Mets’ dismantling in late July, with Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander — key components in the team’s title dreams — being sold off to contenders for prospects.
With the hiring of Stearns and new manager Carlos Mendoza, there’s another reboot happening around Lindor, but this time Cohen’s checkbook stayed mostly closed during the winter months.
As the first big-money star on board, Lindor — like everyone else — assumed the Mets would stay on a free-spending trajectory until Cohen achieved his stated goal of delivering a World Series.
But after record-shattering payrolls yielded only one brief Wild Card cameo in three years, the Mets throttled back this offseason. Cohen still has the highest payroll in the sport at $329 million, but Stearns now is tasked with crafting a winner through mid-level signings and prospect promotions.
That’s created the perception that the Mets have retreated to some degree, but Lindor doesn’t view it that way. He praised the team’s moves and mentioned that he heard from Stearns “there are still a couple of pieces . . . might be one or two things” the Mets could be adding before the season.
“That’s the direction we were heading in,” Lindor said. “Every year, you climb the stairs, you know? For some people, it might seem like we’re going backwards . . . But I’m not here for one year or two years, so I see that we are moving in the right direction. We have changed people along the way, but that’s part of the process.
“I’m fully on board. I respect what they’re doing and I’m here to win. Whether they have us on top or on the bottom, we got to go out there, put it together and win. It doesn’t matter. Nobody was expecting the Diamondbacks [to win the NL pennant last year], but I’m sure they were. Probably not too many people were expecting the Rangers, either. It’s not about the expectations outside — it’s about what you believe and what you think you can do.”
The Mets wilted as division front-runners in recent years, and I asked Lindor if maybe they were better off in an underdog role this season. Take the pressure off, maybe surprise some people. But Lindor refused to be characterized as such, saying that he intends to “push the team to strive to be good every single day.”
For Lindor, that began long before showing up in Port St. Lucie, as he hosted Brett Baty and Mark Vientos for workouts at his Orlando home. Mendoza even drove over from Tampa to join up with his players, giving them all a head start into spring training — and a big boost for the new manager.
“That’s the type of leader Lindor is,” Mendoza said.
Nobody knows yet where the Mets will wind up. But they’ll be following Lindor there.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
