Francisco Lindor’s confident NY Mets roster assessment ignores important realities

Francisco Lindor talked to the media on Sunday and said a lot of good things. He’s optimistic about being ready for Opening Day. He didn’t try to hide from the fact not all players on last year’s New York Mets roster were best friends.

When asked about the look of the team this year and why they’ll be better than last year, he kind of said exactly what the front office would want him to:

"I mean, if you go position by position, it’s definitely better.”  
"…I feel like we have what it takes. They addressed the defense. They addressed the baserunning. They addressed the hitting. They addressed the pitching."

Lindor rarely makes waves in public and has stayed away from criticism of the front office. His assessment feels more company line than honest dissection into what the team did or didn’t do.

Francisco Lindor gave a company line about how he feels about the Mets roster

Position-by-position better? They don’t have an actual right fielder with the weight of the world on Carson Benge to prove himself in camp. First base is a big mystery as well. Saying they’ve improved there can be taken as an insult on Pete Alonso. Let’s not read too deeply into that.

The Mets are definitely a better defensive team up the middle with Marcus Semien at second base and Luis Robert Jr. in center field. But then come the big questions at first base and third base with two players at new positions. Brett Baty in right field? We’re going to have to see it to believe it.

Baserunning wasn’t necessarily a problem for the Mets last year. In fact, it was a strength if you look at the stolen bases aided by the coaching of Antoan Richardson. Baserunning is difficult to measure ahead of time and it’s a strange thing for Lindor to even bring up as they haven’t exactly added significantly in this department.

The hitting was addressed and as much as they did lose, there are plenty of chances for them to be as good or better offensively. It’s a fair belief the Mets lineup can be as productive, maybe more so in a clutch way, than they were last season.

Pitching was addressed, but not as aggressively as many of us would have liked. The bullpen now has Devin Williams, Luke Weaver, and Luis Garcia as guarantees to make the ball club. They’re without Edwin Diaz. The starting staff will contain Freddy Peralta and five leftovers with the most appetizing being rookie Nolan McLean who isn’t even 50 innings into his MLB career.

If we’re going to grade this response from Lindor, he gets an A+ for sticking to the script, a D- for honesty (he might actually believe it), and another A+ for causing controversy. He must know the team isn’t literally position-by-position better. He can’t possibly be unaware of how many questions there are in the rotation and how little was addressed or changed there. 

There are plenty of reasons for optimism about the Mets. Lindor’s first press conference of spring training surely wasn’t the time for him to be openly critical of where the club came up short. What else would we expect from Mr. Smiles? He was talking about the Mets still being able to make the playoffs on July 28, 2023. They were 49-54 at the time with 10 teams in the NL owning a better record.

Lindor isn't the guy to be honest about the Mets roster in public. When things are going well, he'll lead the charge. When they're going badly, he'll find the sunshine in everything.