Francisco Lindor says all the right things, and it's hard not to see him in a Mets uniform for a long, long time
Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor during a spring training workout on Monday Feb. 22, 2021, in Port St. Lucie, Florida. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla.
For my purposes, from a media perspective, I’d give Francisco Lindor a 10-year, $300 million contract tomorrow.
The charismatic Lindor is a major-market dream, a bubbly, engaging personality that reaches through the dull theater of a Zoom room and shakes you to pay attention.
Lindor kept us hanging on every word Monday for nearly 40 minutes — with his 100-megawatt smile and curly fountain of blue hair — shifting easily between delicate topics such as his contract situation and Big Data’s threat to the sport.
As Sandy Alderson likes to say, baseball is an entertainment business. And with Lindor, an electric player at a premium position, you can’t take your eyes off him. Or stop listening to him, for that matter.
But an entertainer like Lindor, who already is giving off a vibe that the Mets will be his team before too long, comes at a very steep price. One that jumped a few days ago when the Padres agreed to give Fernando Tatis Jr., a 22-year-old shortstop with a total of 143 games in the majors, a 14-year contract worth $340 million.
"Tatis got an outstanding deal for him," Lindor said. "I’m extremely happy for him. He deserves it. His family deserves it. And that shows that the game is headed in the right direction. There’s two 300-million-dollar players on the same team. So the game’s headed in the right direction."
The other, Manny Machado, also was a great shortstop before switching to third base. And Lindor, judging by his failed negotiations with Cleveland, is aiming to be the Mets’ first $300 million man.
He got a lucky bounce when billionaire Steve Cohen purchased the team and was happy to take him off Cleveland’s hands, presumably with the plan to lock him up long-term ASAP.
But even Cohen, worth a reported $14 billion, doesn’t throw around $300 million like Monopoly money. Not when he defers to Alderson and acting general manager Zack Scott for roster-building decisions that extend well beyond 2021.
With spring training underway, however, that leaves five weeks to get a Lindor extension done before Opening Day — an artificial deadline floated by the shortstop — and the ticking clock only gets louder each minute free agency draws closer.
According to Scott and Lindor, those negotiations have yet to begin.
"Usually it’s good for [talks] to start the sooner the better," Scott said Monday. "But when the player’s ready, we’re ready to have those conversations. Obviously, he just got here. Given that I know players tend to want to focus on the season once the season gets going, we want to respect that. It’s in our interest that they’re also doing that. So the sooner the better is typically the way to go."
Lindor has been a Met since Jan. 7. I know in these socially distanced times, it’s not easy to get together for a chat, but there are plenty of outdoor tables down here in Florida (it’s going to be in the 80s this week), and the two sides need to get a handle on where the other is coming from.
The Mets already have an idea that Lindor is going to cost them the most lucrative contract in franchise history — likely double that of David Wright’s $138 million, the previous record.
As for Lindor, he sounds more than willing to put pen to paper as long as the numbers are in his neighborhood. He looked as happy Monday in his new Clover Park surroundings as he once did playing for a contender by Lake Erie, so it’s not as if he has to get more comfortable first.
"There’s mutual interest," Lindor said. "I’ve never been shy of an extension. Cleveland did what they had to do. They couldn’t keep me. They weren’t in the position to keep me. They decided to go a different route. But I’ve never been shy of an extension. But it has to make sense. If it doesn’t make sense, then it’s just not fair."
It would be understandable if the Mets wanted to see Lindor play a few months in their uniform, maybe shake off any lingering doubts about last season’s dip in performance, albeit during the anxiety and broken routines of a pandemic-shortened schedule. But Scott insisted they don’t have to gather any further intelligence on Lindor.
"The one thing I’ll say in particular about Francisco is, I know a lot of people in the game that know him well," Scott said. "There’s nothing but great things said about him as a person and as a worker and as a player. So there’s no reservations there."
So what’s the holdup? The Mets are lucky in a sense that Lindor doesn’t seem fazed in the least by all of this focus on his contract situation. He gladly handled all the questions Monday without the slightest hint of irritation, but the noise is only going to increase as Opening Day approaches. The Mets then risk getting the silent treatment if Lindor finally says he’s going to test free agency instead.
The bet here is the two sides never let it reach that point. Even at this early stage, you can see everyone has too much to gain in this relationship.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
