Francisco Lindor is a future Hall of Famer for the Mets

Francisco Lindor is coming off his arguably the best season of his career, and not just with the New York Mets. Lindor hit .273/.344/.500 with a .344 wOBA, and 137 wRC+. The shortstop slugged a career-best 33 home runs and stole 29 bases. On the other side of the ball, Lindor racked up +1 defensive run saved and +16 outs above average. That was the second-most OAA by any shortstop (tied with Bobby Witt Jr.) and the sixth-most by any player, regardless of position.

Lindor ended the year with +7.8 fWAR. That tied a career-best single-season mark for the veteran switch-hitter and made him an MVP finalist for the first time in his career. Lindor’s career is far from over, but it’s certainly not too early to start calling him a future Hall of Famer.

Only a few shortstops have ever had the power and baserunning ability Lindor has. He is just two home runs and 15 stolen bases away from 250 dingers and 200 SBS. Only one shortstop all-time has reached that milestone: crosstown rival legend Derek Jeter. Lindor will almost certainly reach these marks next season. Lindor is currently in a great position to reach 300 home runs as well. Cal Ripken Jr. and Miguel Tejada are the only primary shortstops to achieve that. It’s certainly not out of the question he becomes the first 300/300 shortstop.

Lindor will also go down in history as one of the best defensive shortstops. He already has +48 defensive runs saved at shortstop. Lindor is easily the best defender in the Statcast Era as well. He has +136 outs above average since the creation of OAA. The next closest player is Nick Ahmed at +118. He has one of the best blends of offense and defense at his position. Only seven shortstops all-time have reached at least +10 defensive WAR (Lindor is at +13.3) with an OPS over .800 (Lindor is sitting at .818).

Francisco Lindor is on track to making Cooperstown.

FanGraphs’ version of WAR already has Lindor as one of the best shortstops of all time. At +54.6 fWAR, he already ranks as the 21st most valuable player at his position to play the game. That also makes him the current active leader in shortstop fWAR. There are currently 18 primary SS with at least +60 fWAR. Only three aren’t in the Hall; two are players who debuted in the late 1800s, and the third is Alex Rodriguez. To put it bluntly, every post-1900s shortstop with that much fWAR has made the Hall of Fame, minus the single player who was suspended for PED usage.

And that’s all without talking about Lindor’s accolades. He’s already been to four All-Star games. He has now finished in the top ten in MVP voting a half-dozen times. Lindor has four Silver Sluggers, two Gold Gloves, and a Platinum Glove. He has made MLB’s second team three seasons in a row as well.

The thing is, Lindor is far from done. He is only 31, and his contract isn’t over until his age-37 season. With the last few seasons Lindor has had, there’s no sign of him slowing down yet, either. He’s going to be great for a while longer, and by the time his career is over, we may be talking about him as one of the top three shortstops of all time.