Francisco Lindor is dangerously close to becoming the longest-tenured NY Mets player

The New York Mets have experienced a ton of roster turnover so far in the David Stearns era. In fact, Francisco Lindor has a decent chance to be the longest-tenured Mets player when New York opens its 2026 MLB season on March 26 against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Lindor has been a Met since January 7, 2021, a date on which he was traded to New York from Cleveland. As of right now, only second baseman Jeff McNeil and left-hander David Peterson are longer-tenured Mets players. Both McNeil and Peterson were drafted by the Mets; McNeil debuted in the big leagues in 2018, Peterson in 2020. And most important to the purposes of this discussion: both McNeil and Peterson are in great danger of being traded in the coming weeks.

Jeff McNeil and David Peterson trades could soon make Francisco Lindor the longest-tenured New York Mets player

It’s no secret that the Mets are looking to trade McNeil and get off of his final $15.75 million. Stearns has already acquired another second baseman in Marcus Semien; the writing is more than just on the wall — it’s spray-painted all over Queens.

McNeil won’t be without his suitors. The Kansas City Royals, Cleveland Guardians, Houston Astros, Cincinnati Reds, Athletics and San Francisco Giants all have reason to be interested.

The Pittsburgh Pirates had reason, too, until they traded for Brandon Lowe this week, which leads us to another point: the number of available quality second basemen is dwindling. The Mets themselves took one off the board recently when they acquired Jorge Polanco, who will reportedly be playing first base and DH’ing for New York. Ironically, Polanco’s departure from Seattle also makes the Mariners another second baseman-needy club. You can add them to the above list for McNeil.

The Mets are almost certainly going to trade McNeil. They’ll probably have to wait until late January or February to do so, once the bigger fish on the infield market get sorted out (Ketel Marte, Alex Bregman) and McNeil’s market is crystal clear.

Then there’s Peterson, who would be able to help more than a handful of teams. He’s not a lock to be traded like McNeil is, but there’s been plenty of talk that the Mets would benefit from including Peterson in a multi-player swap to take back a more expensive pitcher and help another team with positional-player needs.

Stearns seems dead-set on turning over a new leaf pretty much everywhere on the roster as he creates the Mets “in his image,” in the words of ESPN’s Paul Hembekides, who pinned Tarik Skubal and Fernando Tatis Jr. to the top of Stearns’ theoretical wish list while writing this.

It wouldn’t be shocking to see both McNeil and Peterson playing for different teams in 2026. Maybe it really is time to make Lindor captain of the Mets, after all.