He won’t like it, but the NY Mets should give star the same Luis Robert Jr. treatment

Francisco Lindor has been a pillar of durability during his entire tenure with the New York Mets.

Lindor despises taking any days off -- even when he's hurt -- which presents Mets manager Carlos Mendoza with a difficult but necessary decision entering 2026, which also happens to be Lindor's age-32 season.

Mendoza must be smart about preserving Lindor's aging body for the marathon of the MLB season, which means giving Lindor significant games off and a handful of DH starts for the first time in Lindor's career.

Call it the "Luis Robert Jr. treatment" if you'd like. Just as Mendoza and the Mets' staff are strategically pacing Robert, so, too, should they pace Lindor, even if Lindor doesn't like the idea at all (he's bound not to).

Francisco Lindor must swallow pride and embrace days off, DH starts for Mets in 2026 (and beyond)

Lindor is now the second-longest-tenured player on the Mets, and in his five-year career in Queens, Lindor has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he's willing to put his body on the line for this club.

Since the Mets traded for Lindor in 2021, Francisco has averaged 151.6 games played per season, and he's appeared in at least 160 games in three of the last four seasons. That 151.6 number being lower than you expected is a result of his debut season in Queens, in which Lindor logged just 125 games due to a serious right oblique strain that had him out for over a month.

Last season, Lindor played in 160 games and led Major League Baseball with 732 plate appearances. The only games he missed were due to breaking his right pinky toe after getting plunked on the foot by an errant Tony Gonsolin slider. Lindor didn't even want to miss the games he did.

A softer player than Lindor (i.e., most of MLB) would have missed far more time after breaking a toe. But Lindor is no stranger to playing injured. In 2022, he fractured his finger when it got caught in a hotel door. He missed just one game. Then, in 2023, Lindor experienced discomfort in his right elbow due to bone spurs during spring training, and he proceeded to play 160 games despite the discomfort.

In 2024, Lindor was attacked by lower back discomfort during the stretch run of the Mets' dream season. He didn't allow it to keep him out for more than two weeks.

Lindor has achieved Iron Man status. But the injuries are starting to pile up, as is par for the course for an athlete approaching their mid-30s. Lindor had two surgeries this past offseason for separate issues. He underwent right elbow surgery immediately after the season. Then, in February, Lindor had surgery on his left hand for a hamate fracture. There was plenty of speculation that the latter operation would push his 2026 debut past Opening Day. Of course, it won't. Lindor will be starting at shortstop from Day 1 of the regular season, it's been confirmed.

Once the season advances past March, however, Lindor and the Mets must embrace a new philosophy about his workload. This makes absolute sense from all angles -- medical, baseball, and business. Lindor has six seasons and over $204 million left on his Mets deal. It's Mendoza's task to protect that investment and ensure that Lindor's latter years are healthy ones. That plan must begin now, not in three years when Lindor is 35.

And this isn't a plan that necessarily involves Lindor sitting out a lot of games. More so, it should involve him DH'ing more than ever before. Again, this isn't what Lindor is used to, and it might garner some pushback from the Gold Glove shortstop. Lindor has made only 16 starts at DH in his career, compared with 1,506 starts at shortstop. Only six of those DH starts have come in a Mets uniform. He should make at least that many DH starts in 2026 alone.

The Mets have the personnel to DH Lindor and give him as many days off as Mendoza deems pertinent. Bo Bichette can play shortstop when Lindor isn't there, with Brett Baty shifting over to third. There's depth in the rest of the infield, with Jorge Polanco and Mark Vientos sharing first base duties, and Marcus Semien holding down second.

Hopefully, the Mets' leadership realizes the importance of enacting this new blueprint for Lindor's workload.