Dream NY Mets starting lineup for the 2025 season

The New York Mets came close to having the dream season in 2024. When expectations don’t include the team going very far and they manage to slip their way into the NLCS and pick up a pair of wins, it’s hard to be too critical of the end results.

A big part of the team’s success were the midseason lineup alterations. Manager Carlos Mendoza saw a problem. He corrected it by moving the pieces of the puzzle around. He eventually found the best formula. If there’s one element this team can build off of best from the 2024 season, it’s how well those changes worked.

The offseason will give the Mets more flexibility to improve the lineup with better players. Realistically, we should expect a couple of tweaks and at least one important bat signed. Let’s put reality aside. Close your eyes. Slow your breath. What do you see in your dream Mets lineup for 2025?

Batting first in the dream Mets lineup, shortstop Francisco Lindor

If your dream Mets lineup includes anyone else at the top of the order, you might have been in a coma. The move to place Francisco Lindor in the leadoff spot for the Mets changed the direction of the ball club completely. Many other factors were at plate yet none impacted them nearly as much as pushing him up from the middle of the order to the tippy top.

Lindor had plenty of experience hitting leadoff in Cleveland and yet he was inserted regularly as the number three hitter for the Mets. A change in part because of the construction of the players around him and his own growth into a well-rounded hitter with power, Lindor didn’t match exactly as a prototypical leadoff hitter. Plus, the Mets already had a guy who had dug his heels in as one of the best on-base guys in baseball.

Lindor’s season couldn’t have gone much better. He was a unicorn signing with a National League team away from winning the MVP. His year will be remembered as one of the best by a Mets player in franchise history. The fact that he played so badly at the start of the year then became the superstar we know he is as soon as he was moved to the top of the lineup makes him the obvious candidate to bat first in dream land.