Francisco Lindor, a non-roster invitee to major league spring training, was sitting quietly by himself when he noticed Austin Allen, a catcher for the New York Mets, in the clubhouse. Lindor looked around, about ready to give up, and retreated, picking up a small basketball and examining the small hoop on the wall next to his locker.
“Austin, do you want to do a round?” Lindor asked. “Come on, let’s do a round.”
Lindor won the brief mid-range shooting competition after a few minutes of banked shots and step-back jumpers, of course; Allen said, “He is good at everything.” But beneath the surface, there was another victory: the deepened bond between a team’s star player and a much less celebrated newcomer.
“The fact that he’s here, around the guys, this early is important for all of us with what we are trying to do here,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said.
Before taking batting practice, Lindor met with reporters in a press conference. He described how, five days into spring training the previous year, he became aware that something was amiss when he swung and missed at a pitch, feeling pain right away that never went away, and not telling anyone about the injury until the last day of the regular season.
Despite having a bone spur in his throwing elbow that required surgery, Lindor played 160 of the 162 games in the season, displayed excellent defense, swiped 31 bases, and hit 31 home runs. On Thursday, Lindor said he never considered informing the Mets’ medical team of his problem sooner because “it’s part of being a professional athlete. You have your aches and pains and you manage it.”
“That’s just who he is,” Allen said.
Allen would know; the two players are signed to the same agency (SportsMeter), and since late 2015, they have worked out together along with other athletes from the agency who reside close to one another in Florida. Allen stated that he has long yearned to play with Lindor.
One reason why?
“He’s a great leader,” Allen said.
The Mets should recognize Lindor’s leadership style, which includes playing hurt, playing every day, being personable, supporting the organization’s direction, and developing young players while producing, as a valuable asset to a team going through a transition under a first-year manager.
When all position players report to camp, the Mets will have their entire group of veterans that they counted on to lead them through a challenging season last summer: players like Lindor, who is the highest-paid player and the first major acquisition of owner Steve Cohen’s big-spending tenure, along with Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander, who were traded, were part of a group that shared leadership responsibilities.
If the Mets are successful in 2024, it will likely be due to a combination of production from their veteran, well-known players and their unproven young ones. The Mets spent the winter in what appeared to be recalibration mode after setting a record for the highest payroll in the history of the sport and then failing on a disappointing level. Instead of pursuing every top free agent, they handed out a batch of one- and two-year deals after missing out on Yoshinobu Yamamoto, their lone major target.
This is the reason Lindor’s statements and, more significantly, his deeds, are so significant.
In the clubhouse, Lindor would make it a point to inquire about how Mark Vientos and Brett Baty were doing. Late in the previous season, Lindor mentioned something to both of them about working out together in Florida at some point in the winter. In the spring training and regular season of that previous year, Lindor was frequently seen giving Baty or Vientos practical demonstrations of footwork or glovework. Vientos twice and Baty once, apart from Vientos’ stops, both took Lindor up on the offer.
Third base coach Mike Sarbaugh, who spent over 30 years working with Lindor’s former team, the Cleveland Guardians, recalled how veterans like Michael Brantley had helped Lindor back in the day. From Sarbaugh’s perspective as Lindor’s former infield coach, Lindor as a young player always loved the game, wanted to have fun, and cared about working hard. Sarbaugh was not at all surprised to hear of Lindor, now 31 years old, paying it forward. In mid-December, shortly after Lindor’s hiring with the Mets, Sarbaugh grinned on one end of the phone call.
“I thought that was awesome, especially for a player with what he has done in the game,” Sarbaugh said. “Just to show those younger players what he does to prepare for a season, and that this isn’t an easy game, that it takes work, not only during the season but in the offseason. For him to bring them and show them what he does, that can only help build their confidence on what they need to do. That was really good of him to do that. He didn’t need to. But it just showed he wants to help and it means a lot.”
Even at the height of an early slump last year, Lindor always impressed defensively, so it is possible that the messaging from Lindor is helping. Vientos arrived extra early for spring training, and Baty talked about how one big thing he learned from last year’s struggles was how quickly veterans turn the page. Baty admitted that there were times when he took his offensive struggles with him mentally to the field, which did not help.
The expectations surrounding the Mets seem more subdued than last year’s World Series-or-bust vibe; despite all the spending, the team failed. Now, new President of Baseball Operations David Stearns has stressed the importance of giving young players chances while still trying to compete. Lindor seemed to grasp that balance when he talked about the expectations on Thursday. Based on the team’s projected lineup, Baty and Vientos will be needed more as they try to develop young players while looking to make the playoffs.
“Every year you climb the stairs,” Lindor said. “For some people it might seem we’re going backwards, but I bought into the concept of a long-term deal. I am not here for one or two years. I keep on seeing that we are moving in the right direction. We have changed people along the way, but that is part of the process. I’m fully on board. I respect what they are doing and I am here to win and I keep on seeing good things that we’re headed in the right direction.”
The cynical response to Lindor’s remarks would be, “Well, what would you want him to say, and what does it matter to the guy who always looks great, appears in so many commercials, and is under contract for eight more years at about another $270 million?” By the same logic, though, Lindor did not have to play another season, especially after the Mets were rendered irrelevant by the trade deadline. He could have told the Mets he had had enough; the injury gave him a good reason to do so, anyhow. But Lindor did not quit; he kept playing, and he kept leading. It is obvious that it did not matter much to the Mets’ fate in 2023, but it might end up being beneficial in the long run.
“From the outside, you think that he is like a flashy type of guy but that’s not really how he is at his core; he is more steady than anything else,” Ottavino said. “The way he talks to the team, it’s always positive. It’s not very overly emotional. That’s one aspect of his personality that really lends itself well to a quiet leadership style.”
(Photo of Francisco Lindor: Vincent Carchietta / USA Today)
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