NY Mets: 1 player who will bounce back next year, 1 who will not

The 2021 New York Mets are a collective group of men who have mostly underachieved this season. It’s astonishing that despite all of the below-average personal numbers they have posted, the team has remained in contention for the entire season.

Some clutch play has helped to make this a far more lively campaign than some of the numbers suggest. Add in a poor National League East and we have a Mets squad winning even without a roster stacked with fat statistics.

There is no shortage of guys who will need to bounce back in 2022. Among them all, I see one definitely performing better next season and one repeating it all over again.

Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor has been too good in the past to continue hitting this poorly

We all expected more from Francisco Lindor this season. Whether you had him as an early-season MVP candidate or simply a .260 hitter with 20 home runs, every single one of us had Lindor performing better than this.

Frankly, it would be hard to see him do worse in 2022.

It’s a leap of faith brought on by his past performances that have me convinced we’ll see a much better version of Lindor next year. He was too good for too many years in Cleveland for this to continue. Without some excuse like an injury or some fugue state that caused him to completely forget how to hit, there is simply no way Lindor will be this bad in year two with the Mets.

James McCann will not be much better for the Mets in 2022

I feel the exact opposite about catcher James McCann. In fact, I wouldn’t even call the 2021 season for him that bad.

If you look back at his lifetime numbers, McCann has been about exactly what he has offered the Mets this year. The power surge he had with the Chicago White Sox is the anomaly. What he did with the Detroit Tigers early on in his career is far closer to what he’s capable of.

McCann will probably, at best, hit .240-.250 for the majority of his contract. If we get anywhere close to 20 home runs, it might mean he got a little help from the wind or a couple of extra games scheduled at Coors Field. Still a nice defender, his bat is what it is. Unfortunately, it’s not as productive as it briefly was.

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Which Mets player do you expect to bounce back and which do you think has no chance at it?