PHILADELPHIA – Outside the walls of the visitor’s clubhouse at Citizens Bank Park, Francisco Lindor’s name is pinging around the baseball-verse, which is always eager for pinging names in the weeks before the MLB trade deadline. This year, the deadline is Aug. 3 at 6:00 p.m.
The Mets have told teams he is not untouchable in their deadline sale, and superstars on teams that aren’t rebuilding are usually untouchable.
So what gives?
The answer from multiple Mets decision-makers over the last week or so has been the same: After two bad seasons that suggest major roster renovations are necessary, they are doing their due diligence by listening. They will not pay another team to take him like they have done with burdensome contracts in the past. But they might be able to envision a 2027 team without him.
Still, on the pages of social media and in the text messages of executives, the obvious questions are percolating: Is Francisco Lindor not a part of the Mets’ solution? He is having a bad year, sure. But is he a problem somehow? Is there really a world in which the Mets would be better without him?
“It doesn’t bother me when it’s coming from outside sources. When it’s more inside, that would bother me. But that’s not happening,” Lindor said Sunday morning, a few hours before he finished a triple shy of the cycle and notched his 1,700th career hit. “I try to stay away from it. I try not to read it or really talk about it. It’s just unnecessary distraction. But I am human. I have a family and they all talk and they all hear it. But since it’s not happening in here, it’s ok."
In here, as the British Open enthralls a few teammates Sunday morning, Lindor sings with coffee as he pulls on his warm-up shirt. In here, coaches hurry up to show him something on the iPad – get a little more upright, here’s what this guy’s stuff looks like.
In here, it’s Juan Soto’s name pinging around the clubhouse briefly, as Lindor calls out to him when Juan Soto arrives at his locker. In Spanish, Lindor says hello, asks how he’s doing, and Soto returns the greeting. This is news around the Mets these days – somehow, for legitimate reason.
Mets owner Steve Cohenpublicly acknowledged this month that Lindor and Soto did not click in their first year together, and few clubhouse relationships inspire comments from owners. But while no one around the Mets denies there has been tension, teammates, coaches, and other staffers all describe the public understanding of the situation as overblown.
Soto denied any beef or issues when the Athletic asked him last week. In the same story, Lindor acknowledged their relationship has room to grow.
Whatever the reality in their minds, these hellos and handshakes – which wouldn’t be noteworthy among teammates were it not for the teammates in question – are the reality observed by reporters in the clubhouse before games and the dynamic visible in the dugout during them.
Opportunities for scrutiny have been scarcer than normal this year because both Lindor and Soto suffered injuries that meant they have not played together much since the start of spring training. Soto missed several weeks with a strained calf. Lindor missed most of spring training with a broken hamate bone, then missed most of the first three months of the season with a calf strain of his own.
The 32-year-old played in at least 152 games each season from 2022 to 2025. But the unprecedented pileup of injuries, plus the Mets' collapse in the second half of last year, mean Lindor has not been the same smiley superstar in more than a full baseball year– long enough for skeptics to wonder if the troubles are temporary or temporal.
Lindor is a reliable slow-starter. So the fact that he entered Sunday hitting .176 with a .596 OPS in his first 18 games back from the injured list is not particularly concerning.
The concerning part about Lindor’s start – the part you could use as evidence to argue something deeper is amiss – is his defense. He made three uncharacteristic errors in three games entering Sunday’s finale against the Phillies. He admitted Sunday he doesn’t understand it, either.
“It’s almost like, written down: I know every year, if I work as hard as I can, I’ll make 9 to 13 errors. In a really bad year, maybe 14. In a really good year, maybe 8,” Lindor said, and indeed, he has made between 9 to 14 errors in every season he has played.
“There have been a couple of times where it has been mental mistakes. But I’ve forgotten outs before. I’ve made mental mistakes before. This is not the first time that I’ve done that,” Lindor said. “Its such a small sample size right now, that’s what I’m not liking. If I make 13 errors in 150, 160 games, ok. But six errors in 43 games? Essentially this is April for me. That’s not good.”
Lindor and bench coach Kai Correa spent several minutes working in front of the dugout before the game, using the machine to fire hard ground balls from short distance, noticing footwork, picking on the details. They then spent several more minutes chatting as Lindor lounged on the grass, engaged in a lengthy conversation that looked a little bit like therapy.
As much as the errors have confounded Lindor, Correa has a theory about the sudden error issue.
“It’s the lack of continuous play: He didn’t have a traditional offseason because of [elbow surgery]. He didn’t have a traditional spring training because of the hamate. He didn’t have a traditional start to the season because of the calf,” Correa said. “So he just hasn’t played consecutive innings. People don’t realize defense in baseball is so reactionary…spring training traditionally acclimates you to that.”
Correa said much of Lindor’s defensive work lately has tried to provide a variety of plays and less predictability, with the goal of giving Lindor more chances to react.
“When you’re confused what to do, sometimes you can be a little late or a little snatchy and make a move with like, question mark body language as opposed to exclamation point body language,” Correa said. “Question-mark body language usually leads to a miss: It’s a missed catch. It’s a dropped ball. It’s a thrown-away ball. Exclamation mark body language, you’re certain of the move, so even if you don’t make the right one, you have higher odds of it working.”
Whether in public narrative or internal reality – and most likely, a little of both – Lindor also seems a in-between when it comes to exactly where he fits in a Mets clubhouse that includes Soto and not Brandon Nimmo, Pete Alonso, and Jeff McNeil. Is he the anchor now, or is Soto? Is he the heart of the next great Mets team or is he part of the reason so many of the last few have been so mediocre? Could he somehow be both?
In the first five years of his Mets tenure, only two shortstops in baseball had a higher wRC+ (Corey Seager and Bobby Witt Jr.,) Only Seager, Witt Jr., and Trea Turner maintained a higher OPS. From 2021 to 2025, only three players in baseball accumulated more fWAR than he did: Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, and Soto. None of those players seem to find themselves in such strange legacy limbo.
“People are entitled to their own opinions, and I respect it. They have their own perspective, their own lens from their life. At some point or other we all judge sometimes, for better or worse,” Lindor said. “Do I agree with things everybody says? No. Am I gonna be liked by everybody? No. That’s something I’ve learned in New York. You start to understand that you’re not gonna be liked by everybody. You can’t be a people pleaser. You have to think, I have a job. I have to get it done.”
For now, and for the remaining six-plus years of his $341 million dollar extension, Lindor’s job is shortstop for the Mets. For most of the last five years, he has done that job at an All-Star level.
Cohen told the New York Post he is glad to have two superstars like Lindor and Soto on his roster and that he does not see either going anywhere. People familiar with the Mets’ thinking say the return for Lindor would have to be substantial. Plus, trading a contract as big as Lindor’s, when he has the right to veto any deal, is no small feat – the kind of deal a team pulls off only when it is desperate to move a player.
Certainly, the Mets are not desperate to move Lindor. But the clearest representation of Lindor’s complicated Mets circumstances is how many people seem willing to consider that they should be.
“Do I get frustrated at times? Of course. Some people eventually get tired of he-said, she-said type stuff and go different routes. Some people get tired of playing the game and retire,” Lindor said.
“Every water will go back to its natural level. I’m just blessed to be doing it. I’ll continue to be me. I’m Francisco Lindor wherever I go.”
