Francisco Lindor insists Steve Cohen, Mets will develop a winning culture
Francisco Lindor #12 of the Mets follows through on his second inning two run single against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Citi Field on Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2023. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Mets owner Steve Cohen outlined the Mets’ future in separate discussions with Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander before each agreed to be traded at the deadline.
Not long afterward, Cohen’s next conversation was with Francisco Lindor, the $341 million shortstop signed in Flushing through the 2031 season. Lindor, of course, wasn’t going anywhere — and that was the point. With the Mets navigating through this “re-purposing” of their record $377 million payroll, as GM Billy Eppler described it, Cohen wanted to keep his franchise cornerstone in the loop.
“We talked for like 40 minutes,” Lindor told Newsday before Wednesday's win over the Pirates. “It was good, it was productive. It was easy to see what was happening. But I was curious to see, from his eyes, what the world looked like.”
And with the Mets’ landscape radically changing around him, Lindor had to recalibrate, too. Not in the way he approaches the game, obviously. On Monday, Lindor became the first Met with 20 homers and 20 stolen bases since Carlos Beltran in 2008. He delivered a two-run single Wednesday in the Mets’ 8-3 victory over the Pirates.
But the four-time All-Star was curious to hear from Cohen directly where the franchise is headed in this next phase, as Lindor — based on his financial stature, and relationship with Steve and wife Alex — is more like the owner’s business partner than just a player. Lindor says he’s talked more with Eppler since the deadline and “always has good communication” with Cohen.
“They know that I’m invested, too,” Lindor said.
When I asked him if that puts him on more of an elevated role, almost as an unofficial adviser to the front office, both with the Cohens and Eppler, Lindor didn’t phrase it quite that way. He already seemed tight with the Cohens well before the ink was dry on the 10-year deal finalized on the eve of Opening Day 2021, and they basically chose him to kick-start the re-branding of the Mets.
“They understand that some players have got to be on board,” Lindor said. “It can’t just be transition on top of transition on top of transition. The best companies in the world have structure. That was one of the things I signed on for here.”
And how does Lindor think he’s done so far as that foundational piece?
“Let them judge,” Lindor said. “I take everything that happens in the organization very seriously. I’m in it. I’m not running from anything. I’m in it.”
Cohen targeted Lindor as a player to build on rather than a transient piece of his crazy-spending free-agent shortcut designed to fast-track the Mets to a title. Lindor was quick to remind me Wednesday that Cohen pressing the reset button on this season didn’t feel all that different from his first year in Queens. While he’s disappointed by what happened at the deadline, Lindor doesn’t seem shaken by it.
“When I first signed, we didn’t have a GM,” Lindor said. “We had a president [Sandy Alderson] that just came out of retirement. That was the vision — to establish what we were going to have. And then we were going to focus on the mission of developing a winning culture.”
But that strategy got knocked sideways this year, the demoralizing follow-up to a 101-win season that supposedly had cemented the Mets as a perennial October threat. Now, Lindor finds himself in somewhat uncharted waters again, with Cohen almost certain to hire a president of baseball ops to work above/with Eppler in a move that would put Buck Showalter’s job in jeopardy.
As for that winning culture, it’s going to require an overhaul. If someone like David Stearns — the former Brewers exec and presumptive favorite — does get the new baseball ops position, everything could be on the table. The only constant is Lindor, and it’s no coincidence that he was given the prestigious corner locker previously owned by David Wright, the Mets’ last captain.
That’s because Lindor was expected to perform a similar duty — minus the official "C" — and he’s gradually grown into that role. Not only is Lindor the Mets’ best all-around player, he’s become the team spokesman, and that hasn’t been an easy gig lately. Getting through these next six weeks is going to be excruciating at times, and Lindor is bound to be the clubhouse voice of that frustration.
“They got to trust me, they got to believe in me,” Lindor said. “I got to be real. I can’t only talk when good things happen.”
It’s been far more bad than good for the Mets this season, and Lindor will miss the playoffs for the second time in three years since coming to Flushing. He’s made it his responsibility to change the direction of the franchise again — and that seemingly transcends what he does on the field. In talking with Cohen, Lindor insists the outlook for the Mets in 2024, though adjusted some lately, isn’t all that different.
“It’s the same vision — winning,” Lindor said. “Hopefully the younger players develop, they take a leap. And the ones that come understand that they’re here to win. To do whatever it takes to get the Mets into the postseason.”
Cohen and Lindor failed in that pursuit this year. But they still have at least another eight years left together to try.
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.
