Former Mets GM reveals what would’ve happened if they never traded for Francisco Lindor

Before there were podcasts and social media, interesting people were told “to write a book.” We won’t need former New York Mets GM Zack Scott to call up Scholastic for any sort of deal. He, himself, is an open book on social media. Want to find out something about what happened during his 2021 season with the Mets? He’s probably going to talk about it if asked nicely.

Scott celebrated the Mets making the playoffs thanks to the Francisco Lindor home run and cited the death threats that followed him for the extension. A fan inquired why the team even bothered to extend him in the first place. Then Scott dropped a pretty big detail.

The Mets traded for Francisco Lindor because the Blue Jays were apparently zeroing in

If not the Mets, Lindor would have been a member of the Toronto Blue Jays and immediately extended—at least according to Scott. The Blue Jays were a team on the rise back in 2021. They won 91 games but with no sixth seed, failed to make the playoffs. At shortstop for them was Bo Bichette who led the league with 191 hits. He’d do the same, this time with 189, the following year.

It doesn’t seem as if the Blue Jays lost out much on the offensive side of things. Although Bichette had a terrible 2024 campaign void of power and a batting average below .290 for the first time in his career, his previous five seasons have been fantastic. Could he have gone to Cleveland in the trade? Considering the Mets gave them Amed Rosario and Andres Gimenez, it’s a good guess.

Picturing the Mets without Lindor is funky. There are an abundant number of possibilities at shortstop they could have gone from simply keeping Gimenez around and developing him further to signing one of the many big name free agents who’ve hit the open market. Would they have snagged a Corey Seager or Trea Turner? Or would the 2024 Mets be scrambling yet again to replace the perpetually injured Trevor Story?

Scott answered an evergreen question. Why trade for a guy you can just sign in the following offseason? It’s because trading for a player and then extending him is a common occurrence and you need to act on those opportunities.