The New York Mets are celebrating Francisco Lindor's 300th home run, but his season this year is another matter.
The New York Mets are currently celebrating Francisco Lindor’s 300th home run, and it’s a worthy achievement for a Mets team that didn’t have many of those.
Lindor has had a remarkable career, as he’s just the second switch-hitter in history to hit 300 home runs and steal 200 bases. He’s been a force offensively who often makes remarkable plays on defense, and he’s a gamer who always wants to be on the field.
That’s the good stuff. The tough part is that those stats were produced by the player Lindor was, not who he currently is. This year’s version of the shortstop was a player who spent much of the season on the IL, was often unfocused in the field and on the bases, and gave away at-bats constantly, especially from the right side, as he lurched his way to a slash line of .225/.309/.423.
The Mets are currently paying Lindor just over $34 million with a contract that runs through 2031. The shortstop is now 32, and it’s fair to say the Mets are paying him for the player he was, not who he currently is. Lindor has become subpar defensively as well, as he continues to make bad mistakes at short and fewer of those remarkable plays that earned him the big deal.
The back half of big contracts like this are almost always tough to stomach, but that’s turning out to especially be the case with Lindor. He fancies himself to be a leader, and in his mind the Mets are “his team.”
The Mets tried to disabuse him of this notion by not putting him on their list of untouchables when they declared themselves open for business to conduct a fire sale at the trade deadline, but if you’ve been following Lindor and reading his quotes through the second half of the season, you know that this hasn’t really taken hold.
Lindor will undoubtedly come to spring training next year — should we call it summer training now for next year? — with the same mindset, and manager Andy Green has said that he and his star shortstop are eager to “change the narrative.”
But can the Mets really do that given the current situation? Lindor has also been feuding with fellow star Juan Soto for a couple of seasons now, and the current party line has former starter Freddy Peralta saving the franchise by engineering a peace meeting between the outfielder and the shortstop. If you believe that one, we’ve heard there’s a certain bridge in Brooklyn that’s up for purchase.
