Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor is having possibly the best season of his career and an MVP-caliber season at that. Despite this and playing on a team in the largest sports market, he still seems to be under-appreciated.
Prior to the 2021 season, the four-time All-Star was traded to the Mets with with Carlos Carrasco as a package of players including Andrés Giménez and Amed Rosario went back to Cleveland. Early that spring, Lindor signed a 10-year, $341 million extension with the Mets. Then he had the worst season of his career, hitting .230 with a 100 OPS+ and 3.0 WAR.
In 2022, the Guardians won the AL Central. Giménez was an All-Star and combined for 11.6 WAR with Rosario. Lindor was making a lot more money than both of them combined and despite him finishing ninth in NL MVP voting for a team that won 101 games, there was plenty of talk about the trade and his salary.
Maybe there's lingering residue from that down year that has caused him to be under-appreciated. Maybe it's just the nature of fandom. Shohei Ohtani has the MVP on lockdown right now and even a small injury might not knock him off the perch. But Lindor deserves mention in the discussion and he might end up with the strongest case for second place.
Overall, Lindor is hitting .269/.339/.487, good for a career-high 134 OPS+. He has 34 doubles, 27 homers, 78 RBI (from primarily the leadoff spot, that's a huge number), 89 runs, 25 stolen bases and 5.8 WAR. Among NL players, he trails only Ohtani (6.6) and Ketel Marte (6.0) in WAR. I'm sure many would latch onto the "low" batting average, but .269 is 25 points above the league average.
Also, there's serious value in playing every single day when you perform at the level Lindor does. He's played in all 131 games and he leads the majors in both plate appearances and at-bats.
All over the NL leaderboards, Lindor also ranks in the top 10 in runs (third), hits (fifth), total bases (third), doubles (third), home runs (fifth), steals (seventh), OPS+ (eighth), extra-base hits (second), times on base (fifth) and win probability added (eighth).
We shouldn't lean only on WAR -- it's why I'm not -- but Lindor scoring so well is a good illustration of just how great an all-around player he is. That is to say, it isn't just the offense.
There's plenty of defensive value. Lindor obviously plays one of the most important and demanding positions on the field in shortstop. He's only committed 11 errors in all his chances, good for a solid .981 fielding percentage. That stat alone doesn't cover everything because there's no range component. Outs above average does factor in range and Lindor ranks as the eighth-best defender in all of baseball there. That's on Baseball Savant, as is fielding run value where Lindor rates out as the ninth-best defender in baseball.
Baserunning, too, is a plus for Lindor. We can see the stolen bases, where he's headed for 30-plus steals and possibly a career high (31 is his career high, which was set last season). He's only been caught stealing four times for an 86% success rate vs. a league average of 78%. Also, extra bases taken can be a good measure of value on the bases. That is, getting to third from first on a single, scoring from second on a single and scoring from first on a double. Lindor sits at 52% there against a league average of 43%.
Further, sometimes voters want to loop in a team component. That is, has this player elevated his team in contention? Lindor's surge this season has coincided with the rise of his team as a contender. The Mets were 11 games under .500 as late as June 2, sitting 24-35. Since then, they've gone 44-28, second in the NL to only the Diamondbacks. During this run, Lindor has been the catalyst, hitting .302/.376/.560 with 21 doubles, 18 home runs, 49 RBI and 56 runs in 72 games.
The complete picture shows a superstar who is doing everything well and some things at an elite level. His team is in contention, he plays every single day and is posting a career year. Lindor has finished in the top 10 in MVP voting five times before, though he's never finished higher than fifth.
And yet, it seems incredibly unlikely he can win the award. Lindor will very likely end up with the best finish in his career, maybe even checking in as the runner-up to a historically good Ohtani. Hopefully that will wash off the stink of the nonsense about a trade the Mets pretty clearly won, his high salary and supposedly "low" batting average, even if he doesn't go home with the hardware. He is truly one of the best all-around players in baseball.