Two things are true about the NY Mets starting lineup options in the cleanup spot

MLB starting lineups are more important on a daily basis than, let’s say, the announced starting lineup in an NHL game. Why even have a starting lineup for guys who’ll be back on the bench within two minutes? Nevertheless, baseball fans love to discuss starting lineups. New York Mets fans are no exception. Coming into 2025, with a very familiar lineup but also some new names sprinkled in there as well, we’ll have the rest of the preseason as well as every day for the next few months to have some opinion on it.

We already know what the top of the order will look like. Francisco Lindor batting first. Second is Juan Soto. Third, most likely, will be Pete Alonso. The number four spot, the only one with a fun nickname, remains a little more flexible. By default, if it’s Lindor-Soto-Alonso, the spot will have to go to Mark Vientos or Brandon Nimmo. Nimmo seems the more practical choice if they want to separate the righties and bat Jesse Winker sixth.

Traditionalists won’t like to see it. But two things are true with the starting lineup options for the coming year.

It’s true, the Mets have multiple candidates to bat cleanup

Pluck away members of this Mets lineup and put them elsewhere, they probably are batting cleanup. Lindor, Soto, Alonso, and Vientos are all reasonable candidates to bat cleanup if we look at things from an old-school perspective. They can hammer 30 home runs in a full season.

Nimmo has only recently become more of a power hitter although he is coming off of a season where it was about the only thing he did well aside from knocking hits with runners in scoring position. Whether you want to excuse his poor 2024 performance or not, he isn’t a great fit to bat fourth.

It’s also true, the structure of the Mets lineup doesn’t give them the most traditional choice

The other truth is that the Mets don’t really have the right mix of players to have a more sensible cleanup hitter from yesteryear. Against a left-handed starting pitcher, Nimmo is bound to drop in the order to either fifth or sixth, paving a pathway for Vientos to maybe move up a spot or some other sort of restructuring.

Thinking about starting lineups in an antiquated way is bound to cause frustration. Lindor is hardly the greatest match for the leadoff spot, profiling more as a number three hitter than anything else. But you can’t argue with results. He hit so incredibly well batting first that it proves sometimes you can’t just look at numbers or skills and plug the players in.

A new way of looking at lineups can sometimes have sluggers batting leadoff, the best hitter on the team hitting second, and a slightly weaker middle of the order with a run producer pushed down somewhere closer to the seventh spot rather than a longer line of insufficient hitters.

The Mets options in the cleanup spot are plentiful, but more often than not, you might see those picturesque sluggers batting somewhere else for the benefit of the team of tradition.