NY Mets locker room dissonance about Francisco Lindor, Jeff McNeil feels overblown

A Friday night is a weird time to report the New York Mets players didn’t get along. Saving it for Black Friday is even stranger. How locked into baseball are fans tonight? The NY Post didn’t seem to care as they dropped the motherload of “pay us the subscription fee or else!” story about the Mets being a mess.

According to the story, Francisco Lindor verbally attacked Jeff McNeil due to a lapse on defense. Their tension dating back to 2021 may not have been buried as deeply under the rug as we had hoped. The two have a strange history. Apparently, Lindor still feels he can call out his teammate.

Also contained within is how Lindor and Juan Soto aren’t best buddies. Lindor likes “fashion” and Soto comes to the ballpark ready to win games. Seriously. That’s where the trouble comes from.

One moment in one game during a bad stretch of Mets losses doesn’t define the locker room

If the Mets pulled themselves together after their 10-2 loss that apparently had Lindor and McNeil arguing over the merits of a ratcoon all over again, this would have been a hiccup. But because the team continued to struggle for the rest of the year and didn’t even make the playoffs, it’s worthy of a story months later. Fans shouldn’t doubt the legitimacy of the event or the “chilly” relationship as it’s called between Lindor and Soto.

Does it matter though? It seems like in every bad Mets season there’s a story about the locker room being imperfect. Quite the opposite has been said in years where they win. 2021, 2023, and now 2025 had something “off.” The 2022 and 2024 seasons were the exact opposite with veteran leaders all making it seem like Shangri-La.

Something was amiss with the Mets last year and it wasn’t because of the personalities in the locker room. The Mets won the very next day 11-4 over the Phillies. McNeil, oddly enough, made an error in center field where he began the game and later moved to second base for an inning only to get replaced defensively late by Luisangel Acuna. 

Figuring to be on the trade block, the Mets’ decision to add Marcus Semien might have had something to do with the relationship up the middle between Lindor and McNeil. From a baseball standpoint, it already made sense. From a personality one, we get further evidence of one of the next steps the Mets are likely to take.