You’ve probably heard that Juan Soto works for Steve Cohen now, and now that Cohen paid more to get Soto as a free agent than any owner has ever paid for a free agent in all of world history, unless you count what Elon Musk paid for the federal government. So the Mets get Soto and Mets fans get him and you know who else gets Soto? The best all-around ballplayer in town and pretty much the best all-around player the Mets have ever had, which means Francisco Lindor. And you think Lindor was smiling before Soto switched sides.
There has never been a Met to win the MVP award in the National League, all the way back to 1962. We thought Darryl Strawberry had a terrific shot back in 1988, but then he and Kevin McReynolds essentially split the Mets vote, and Kirk Gibson walked away with the award, on his way to limping around the bases after one of the most famous World Series home runs ever hit.
But last season it took Shohei Ohtani having a season for the ages, hitting more than 50 home runs and stealing more than 50 bases, for him to beat out Lindor for MVP. And as great as Ohtani was and is, as much as what he did even in a year when he couldn’t hit became a season for the ages, it will always be a fact — especially for those of us in New York who had the privilege of watching Lindor be the kind of baller he was on a daily basis — that Lindor was every bit as valuable to the Mets as Ohtani was to the Dodgers.
Now he will have Soto hitting behind him in Carlos Mendoza’s batting order the way Aaron Judge had Soto hitting ahead of him in what became another season for the ages from Judge. And this has a chance to be as dazzling a 1-2 punch for the Mets as Soto-Judge was for the Yankees, and that means before we’re even talking about Mark Vientos and Pete Alonso and Brandon Nimmo and everybody else making Mendoza’s offense look as loaded and balanced as it does.
It starts at the top of the order with Lindor, though, the way the Mets season really started last May when Mendoza moved him to the leadoff spot, and it turned into one of the most entertaining seasons the Mets have had since the ’86ers. So many good things happened after the Mets were 22-33 at the end of the May. But it was Lindor who provided the spark that ignited everything.
We hear so many bad things these days about infielders in their 30s; heard that a lot before Alonso signed a much shorter deal as a free agent than the ones the Mets offered him during the 2023 season. But in Lindor’s age-30 season, he was as good as he had ever been, in Cleveland or here, as exciting from both sides of the plate and in the field and on the bases, as he had been at any point in his career. That was before the dramatic home runs he would end up hitting in October. He was all that the Mets could ever have hoped for when they signed him to the his 10-year, $341 million contract a few years ago.
Francisco Lindor has been all that, period. Not just as the leadoff man. As the undisputed team leader. Of course he was the one who called the players-only meeting the last week of May. And from there until October, the Mets were as good as anybody in baseball, all the way to the National League Championship Series.
“If you don’t like him,” Buck Showalter told me once about Lindor, “you don’t like baseball.”
Lindor took it all on last season, including his team’s slow start and his own slow start. He ended up with 618 at-bats in 152 games. He hit 33 home runs, the second most of his career. He scored 107 and knocked in 91 after knocking in 98 the year before and 108 the year before that. Again: This was a switch-hitting shortstop who’s also a streak of light on the bases doing all that. The biggest swing of all was the grand slam he hit against the Phillies in Game 4 of the NLDS, the one that punched the Mets’ ticket back to the league championship series for the first time since 2015.
“Francisco Lindor!” the Mets great radio voice, Howie Rose, said in that moment. “He may have just outdone himself!”
But then, he had been outdoing himself for the past five months, until it took Ohtani, the kind of talent who comes along once in a hundred years in baseball, to be voted MVP. Lindor would end up with an OPS of .844, the third highest of his career and a .500 slugging percentage, the second-highest of his career. The only time he hit more home runs was when he hit 38 in Cleveland in 2018. There has never been a position player, in all of Mets history, who could do as much game to game, to help them win baseball games as Lindor does.
There were three huge stars in Baseball New York last season: Judge was one and Soto was one and Lindor was another. Now he is the one who gets Juan Soto, gets him at a time when Lindor, even being five years older than Soto, looks to be every bit as much in his prime as Soto is. The combination of Lindor and Soto will be different from Judge and Soto, obviously, as Soto and No. 99 combined for 99 home runs. But the show at Citi Field can be just as dynamic, and just as compelling.
Soto was No. 3 in the MVP voting in his league. Lindor was No. 2. Now they are teammates, and will be something to see. I was speaking with Carlos Mendoza about Lindor last September, and this is one of the things the manager said about sitting down with his shortstop after getting the Mets job:
“[Lindor] was already one of the best players in our game, and all he talked about was wanting to get better. Listen, you could see it sitting in another dugout. But I like it much better sitting in ours, watching him hit — and hit for power — from both sides of the plate and get on base. He’s the complete package, and that’s before you see how he brings the whole group together.”
He brought the whole group together in 2024, until the Mets came up just two victories shy of the World Series. Now he gets to bat ahead of Juan Soto. You know who the best act in town is? Them. You know who the best act in town might still be? The whole team.
NO SURPRISES WITH STROMAN, KNICKS NEED TO COMMIT TO DEFENSE & ST. JOHN’S CAN MAKE A RUN IN MARCH …
Who among us ever for a New York minute thought things were going to work out well between the Yankees and Marcus Stroman?
Now he says, “I’m a starter.”
Yep.
A starter who was 10-9 for the Yankees, and who is 87-85 lifetime, and if they didn’t know exactly what they were getting, they were the only ones.
The Orioles aren’t the biggest threat to the Yankees in the AL East, by the way.
The Red Sox are.
And I thought that way before they signed Alex Bregman the other night.
The Knicks are even more fun this season than they were last season, which is saying plenty.
And, as we can all see, they sure can light it up.
But getting big stops for them on defense still looks like a part-time job, especially with their two best players.
As much as their two best players kept lighting it up all the way to All-Star Weekend.
There are more talented teams than Rick Pitino’s St. John’s team.
But I haven’t seen one all season that plays harder than his does.
At this stage of the game, Rick remains one of the great coaches of all time.
Which is why it’s not crazy to think that in a wide-open men’s college basketball season they can’t make it all the way to the Final Four.
Can’t lie: Gonna miss the “OMG” guy with the Mets.
Has Andy Reid made any adjustments yet on offense?
There were all the ways we looked at Super Bowl LIX, and it turns out that the two places we should have been looking at the hardest were these for the Chiefs:
Left tackle.
Right guard.
Neither one of whom could block you or me.
One more question about the big game:
Is Nick Sirianni off the hot seat now?
My buddy Pete, who knows a lot of stuff, says there are a couple of things worth keeping in mind about the Dodgers:
- Eight of the nine guys projected to be in their regular lineup are 30 or older.
- Not one of the guys projected to be in their rotation made 25 starts last season.
I hope Conan O’Brien kills it on the Oscars show, because he has always been one of the good guys.
Flag football at what’s left of the Pro Bowl is more entertaining than the NBA All-Star Game.
Maybe next weekend, when the Knicks get to take another run at the Celtics, they can do something that makes the champs appear to respect them.
I don’t know how good the Lakers can be without a rim protector, but it sure would be fun the rest of the way if LeBron and Luka can make a run.
So even as Aaron Rodgers is just packing his bags, we keep reading and hearing that the Giants may be going after their own aging quarterback in Matthew Stafford.
And, gee, what could possibly go wrong with a scenario like that?
I’m missing Jake from State Farm already.