How Francisco Lindor became the most underappreciated player in baseball

NEW YORK — Francisco Lindor is the heartbeat of the New York Mets. Like the constant and steady thump-thump that keeps an organization running, that beat can sometimes be overlooked, even as it’s working its hardest to make sure the entire system survives.

The Mets shortstop is enjoying his best career season, putting himself in the middle of the conversation for the National League’s MVP award, and leading his surging team in a crowded pennant race. Despite his electric performances on the field, and his fingerprint in helping to change the culture of the Mets, Lindor’s collective impact on the game has largely gone unnoticed since he became a mainstay in New York. Four years into his Mets tenure, Lindor has built a compelling case for being the most underappreciated player in Major League Baseball.

“It’s easy to quantify what he does on the field. That’s really impressive,” Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns said. “It’s much harder to quantify the impact both by what he says and also how he acts.”

Lindor enters Monday with the highest fWAR (7.3) in the NL yet didn’t make the All-Star team this summer. In fact, he’s been snubbed for the All-Star Game every year since joining the Mets. But don’t let that exclusion distract you. Since 2022, Lindor has the second-highest fWAR (19.2) — behind only Aaron Judge (25.3) — among all position players in the majors. He’s one of only three players to hit 100 home runs and steal 75 bases since 2021.

Last week, he clubbed his 30th homer of the year, giving him five such seasons in his career — only two shy of Álex Rodríguez’s record for a shortstop.

No Met has ever won the MVP award, but even if Lindor falls short this season to Shohei Ohtani, the star shortstop could join Darryl Strawberry and Tom Seaver as the only players in franchise history to finish second in MVP balloting. Nevertheless, animated discussions on whether Lindor has earned the 10-year, $341 million contract he signed with the Mets cling to his every accomplishment and every setback.

“The contract will be worth it the day that I win a championship,” Lindor told FOX Sports. “I’m giving back, I’m helping, I’m doing a lot of things [since signing the deal]. But from my point of view, my own expectations, only winning is going to say I earned that contract.”

It’s impossible to talk to those who know Lindor best without the word leadership being mentioned. So, what does that look like, and how does it show up? His teammates gush about his ability to make everyone around him better. When he speaks up in the clubhouse, there’s an intent silence that takes over, because Lindor commands the room and forces everyone to listen.

“We look at him now as the captain of the team,” Mets closer Edwin Díaz said.

Several Mets teammates said Lindor’s positive attitude is infectious, and his consistency and preparation is inspiring. The two-time Gold Glove winner is a constant in the Mets lineup, playing through minor injuries and even forgoing the paternity list and jumping into game action mere hours after his daughter was born. Since 2022, he’s tied for the second-most games played (464) in the major leagues.

Outfielder Tyrone Taylor said it means a lot to him that, even though he’s a role player for the Mets, Lindor treats him the same as everyone else, expecting accountability from Taylor and holding him to it. The outfielder has noticed that Lindor has a feel for when to deliver instructions, and when to challenge teammates for not playing up to their potential.

In late May, Lindor called a players-only meeting to hold the clubhouse accountable. It has since been credited with helping the Mets turn their season around; they were 22-33 on May 29 and now sit 13 games over .500, tied with the Braves for the final NL wild-card spot.

“I couldn’t imagine having to communicate with every single person here, and then still be able to do my own thing,” Taylor said. “I think that’s impressive.”

“He’s always thinking about everybody else first,” outfielder Jesse Winker said. “This is a guy that’s having an MVP season, but he still puts everyone before himself because he wants to win.”

Lindor is serenaded with MVP chants on a nightly basis now, both at Citi Field and on the road. But the first few weeks of the 2024 season began with adversity for the shortstop. On April 13, Lindor was batting .103 with a .393 OPS. It was the worst slump of Lindor’s 10-year career, as he recorded just six hits in his first 58 at-bats of the season, with only two of those knocks falling for extra bases.

While television and radio talk-show hosts began to wonder if that was the start of the 30-year-old’s decline, Citi Field crowds tried a different method. When Lindor and the Mets returned to Flushing from a road trip in early April, Mets fans greeted the slumping Lindor with a standing ovation. The crowd’s support was a complete reversal of the rancor Lindor worked through in the past. He soon turned his season around, compiling a .784 OPS in the first half while leading all NL shortstops in home runs (17). But he was still overlooked for the All-Star Game, both by fan voting and by the commissioner’s office.

“Not getting voted into All-Star, I was half expecting that, but I was also a little disappointed that it seems like year after year fans keep forgetting how much value he actually brings,” Lindor’s wife, Katia, told FOX Sports in a phone interview. “But obviously he’s had a great last few months and that alleviates that sense of pressure. Sometimes I dread going to the stadium and just hearing fans talk crap, but I’m there every game. So it’s really, really nice to hear them being positive and cheering him on.

“The MVP chants have been pretty chilling for me because it’s quite different from what we’ve experienced in the past.”

Francisco Lindor’s first year with the Mets was turbulent, he will admit. He signed that $341 million contract just three months after Steve Cohen completed a record-breaking $2.4 billion purchase of the club. Lindor’s deal, which was finalized on the eve of Opening Day, became the longest and most lucrative contract in franchise history, marking a new era of Mets baseball that promised spending, good culture, and winning.

While he tried to live up to extreme expectations in the public eye, there was a lot going on behind the scenes. He was a new father, moving to a new city, playing for a big-market franchise with a changing front office, and introducing himself to the people and place he would call home for the next decade — all within the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. For an extrovert like Lindor, the seclusion of the 2021 season made it especially difficult to get settled in a new environment.

“It was the pandemic year, and I’m all about smiling and seeing people and connecting,” he explained. “[Reporters] were talking to me through that Zoom call. The lockers were separated. We couldn’t just be the same. It was different. It was a different year.”

Then came the on-field blunders: an 0-for-23 hitless stretch from April to May, followed by another 0-for-15 skid at the end of May. His struggles at the plate brought on a tidal wave of frustration from the fan base. For months, home crowds booed and jeered Lindor. From the shortstop’s perspective, this was a different kind of welcome to New York, where fans are loud whether they like what they see or not. Then came another fiasco, when Lindor and then-teammate Javier Báez gave Mets fans thumbs-down gestures upon collecting hits before apologizing.

After four seasons of earning All-Star selections and MVP votes — for a Cleveland franchise that posted a winning record every year he was there — Lindor finished his first year with the Mets with a league-average 100 OPS+ and his worst career offensive numbers. He also missed significant time because of an oblique injury as New York missed the playoffs for a fifth consecutive season.

“Coming up to the plate and having your own fan base boo you was something totally new for him at the time,” Katia said. “Obviously, you go to an opposing team’s field and get booed, that’s normal. But when he’s going out every day and working that hard for the Mets fan base, and for this organization, and then having the feeling of them turning on you, that was just a lot to grapple with.”

Lindor has carried the twin tasks of changing the Mets culture and turning the organization into a winner since the moment he signed the richest deal in history for a MLB shortstop. He said he will continue carrying those responsibilities for the remainder of his Mets career. But it took him a while to learn how to balance being a shortstop, a leader, the face of a franchise, a father, a husband, and a citizen who gives back to the community — all at once.

Under the guidance of former Mets manager Buck Showalter, who in 2022 advised Lindor to primarily focus on being the Mets shortstop, Lindor began to be himself again. With a vote of confidence from Steve and Alex Cohen, and his family’s support system, Lindor began to find stability in his new world. Lindor said it took him time to understand that he doesn’t have to “be someone else” for the Mets. Now, skipper Carlos Mendoza praises Lindor for exactly who he is — a student, a leader, an MVP candidate — on a daily basis.

“Just proud of him,” Mendoza said. “He’s got a hard job, you know? Playing shortstop for the New York Mets is not an easy job. And the way he’s doing it, at an elite level, on both sides of the ball. There’s offensively, defensively, base running, and the impact in the locker room, the impact on the organization. We’re talking about a special guy here.”

There could be multiple factors for why Lindor has been underappreciated in MLB since joining the Mets: the mega contract; the intense expectations; his elite defense and baserunning being overlooked; New York missing the playoffs in two of his first three years; the first impression of recording his career-worst season upon arriving; his traditional slow starts at the plate dimming his strong second halves — his OPS is markedly higher after the All-Star break during his tenure; his behind-the-scenes leadership that remains unseen to everyone except those within the Mets organization and those who know him best.

“Well, $341 million is a lot. It’s a lot,” Lindor said. “So, whenever you sign something like that, you’re expected to play at a level that only superhumans can play. … But New York is a perfect market for guys that get paid because you can’t take a step back. You always gotta continue to look forward. I’ve found it to be an extremely great place for me and my family.”

Lindor said it best. He can’t take a step back now, not when he’s on the verge of taking his Mets into the postseason. There’s still too much at stake; perhaps there always will be. The Mets future looks bright, and the pressure-packed expectations that have shadowed every step of Lindor’s Mets journey have only heightened. Nobody understands that better than the heartbeat of the Mets, and he won’t be satisfied until he wins the whole damn thing. Now, that is worth appreciating.

“Playing in the postseason every year, making this organization as sustainable as possible, a winning franchise every year, and winning a championship,” Lindor said. “That’s when I can — hopefully, towards the end of my career — I can look at Steve and Alex and say, ‘I gave you everything that I had. Hopefully, it was worth everything.'”

Deesha Thosar is an MLB reporter for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets as a beat reporter for the New York Daily News. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Deesha grew up on Long Island and now lives in Queens. Follow her on Twitter at @DeeshaThosar.

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