NEW YORK — Last October, Francisco Lindor and Mets hitting coach Eric Chavez sat down to pause and reflect on the star shortstop’s 2024 season. The Mets had just clinched a playoff berth. Lindor had just put a bow on an MVP-caliber season, finishing the year with the second-highest WAR in the National League. It was his best year in a Mets uniform.
But Chavez wanted to talk about April.
Lindor is familiar with going through slow starts since he joined the Mets. After all, those sluggish starts to the year are a regular source of frustration for the shortstop, and last year was no different. He batted .190 in his first 45 games last season, including an 0-for-24 slump in the first week of April, before moving into the leadoff spot on May 19. Lindor hit .308 with a .937 OPS and 163 wRC+ the rest of the way.
“We were talking about my season, and he said that, at one point in the year, it was like I was a no-show — like I wasn’t really there,” Lindor recently recalled of his October conversation with Chavez. “And that hit home for me.”
Being called a “no-show” can be difficult to process for any professional athlete. But Lindor didn’t take it personally; he was appreciative of the tough love. He said no one had been that honest about his performance since his years playing in Cleveland, when former veteran teammates like Michael Brantley, Mike Napoli and Rajai Davis would let him hear it. So Chavez’s words stuck with Lindor throughout the offseason and into this year. The result?
Lindor is flipping the narrative. The four-time Silver Slugger is playing with a level of early-season dominance that we haven’t seen in years.
He’s batting over .300 in April for the first time since 2017. Lindor swatted his third leadoff home run of the season in Monday night’s 5-4 win against Aaron Nola and the Phillies. He added a three-run shot in the seventh inning to mark his 20th career multi-homer game. Alex Rodriguez (33) and Ernie Banks (24) are the only shortstops in MLB history to record more multi-homer games than Lindor. His five home runs this month are two shy of his career high for April, which was set back in 2017.
For better or worse, All-Star selections are rooted in April performances, and now Lindor finally looks poised to win his first All-Star award as a Met.
“I loved it,” Lindor said of Chavez’s feedback. “I didn’t take it as tough. I took it as, like, that’s true, you know? When you go 0-for-30 it’s like you’re not there. If you go to the box and you waste five at-bats, that’s a day that you didn’t show up. So I took that to heart.
“Sometimes just having conversations, it wakes things up. Or it reminds you that, yes, you’re giving everything you got, but I think you might have a little bit more. And that’s kind of how I took it.”
From Chavez’s perspective, there were a few reasons why he felt comfortable enough with Lindor that he could deliver some sharp criticism to the shortstop. On the one hand, last year was his third season working with Lindor, and they’ve developed a close rapport in that time. Chavez said “there’s no way” he could’ve told Lindor something like that back in 2022, when the Mets hired him onto their coaching staff.
“Towards the end of last year, that was the turning point of everybody getting comfortable with everybody,” Chavez said. “It takes time.”
On the other hand, Lindor had already set the precedent, in April of last year, of holding each other accountable. After the Mets opened the season with a five-game losing streak, the shortstop pulled Chavez aside and delivered some feedback of his own.
The Mets hired Chavez to be their primary hitting coach for the 2022 season, then they shifted him to bench coach for the 2023 season, with Jeremy Barnes taking over hitting coach duties. Then the Mets moved Chavez back to the role of hitting coach, alongside Barnes, for the 2024 season. Chavez was busy dealing with the aftermath of that transition when Lindor got in his ear.
“I kind of lost my way, because it’s just a different way of navigating the day,” Chavez said. “Even though I’d been there before, I still had to feel my way around. It was like, okay, how are we going to make this dynamic work again? So Lindor pulled me aside. He’s like, ‘Dude, what? Where are you at?’ And I’m like, ‘What do you mean?’ He goes, ‘We need to hear from you. You need to step up.’ And I didn’t take that personally. Honestly, I went home and I was like, he’s right.”
Ever since Lindor called a team meeting last May, the Mets’ success has been built on a foundation of mutual respect, where everyone feels valued and heard. Holding each other accountable helped the Mets create a close team culture that, by now, has been well-documented as a catalyst for their deep postseason run last year. While that emphasis on accountability has carried over into this season, Chavez helped Lindor leave his slow start in the past.
“If I talk, I mean it,” Lindor said. “I’m not just going to talk for the sake of it.”
Entering this year, Lindor endured slow starts in three out of his four seasons in Queens. He eventually warmed up at the plate in May or June, which was early enough to balance out his full-season numbers, but too late in the year to garner enough votes for an All-Star award. Lindor’s four career All-Star awards were all won in Cleveland, from 2016-2019. Chavez compared Lindor’s recent trends at the plate to his own prime playing for the Oakland Athletics.
The former Silver Slugger third baseman accrued 38.3 WAR and received MVP votes in four seasons, but he never won an All-Star award throughout his 17 years in the major leagues. Since 1993 (the year of the first MLB All-Star Game), Chavez is one of just seven players who recorded 35 WAR while not making an All-Star team. Kevin Kiermaier, Andreton Simmons, Gary Maddox, Kirk Gibson, Tim Salmon, and Tony Phillips are the others.
“My biggest downfall as a player was I would go stretches where I was terrible,” Chavez said. “No approach, rolling over to second base on pitches I shouldn’t have been. The good players, they can add up numbers in a small amount of time. But the great players, they’re giving you — throughout six months — good quality at bats.
“So I told [Lindor], ‘You remind me of me.’ It’s very typical. Hot streaks when you look good, and then sometimes it’s like, where’d you go? And you’re going to see things like that with guys who play every day, stretches that aren’t very appealing. He’s playing a demanding position. He’s pretty much the captain of the team. There’s a lot. So it’s very understandable.”
Lindor is outspoken about how much pressure he used to put on himself at the onset of his Mets career. Part of that burden came from signing a 10-year, $341 million contract — which was, at the time, the largest contract in Mets history — while also believing that it was his responsibility to change the Mets culture. But his perspective changed last year, when his maturity in the game, his years in the Mets organization, and his growth as a father and husband all started to add up. Lindor entered this season with a newfound sense of peace that took five seasons in Queens to actualize.
He’s naturally lifting a huge weight that only relaxes by playing at an All-Star level and leading the Mets to the playoffs. The Mets tend to go as Lindor goes. The club’s 17-7 start to the season is no coincidence.
“He’s focusing on the process, not so much the results,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “He wants to contribute so hard and he wants it so bad for the team, that at times I feel like he can get in his own way. Now, he’s more like, ‘You know what? I just have to be myself.’ That’s what he’s doing right now and he’s getting a lot of results.”
Deesha Thosar is a MLB reporter and columnist for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets for four years as a beat reporter for the New York Daily News. Follow her on Twitter at @DeeshaThosar.
Get more from Major League Baseball Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more
Read the full article here
