The MLB trade deadline is set for Aug. 3 and one of the few teams that we can be certain is a seller right now is the New York Mets. It's been a catastrophic season and yet another retooling is in order from the David Stearns-led front office.
The Mets (43-60) are open for business and very few players appear to be off limits. This has led to plenty of speculation that All-Star shortstop Francisco Lindor could be moved. I'm not buying it, but, hey, you never know.
Lindor is having a tough year, especially when comparing what he's doing to the high bar he's set for himself over the course of his career. He suffered a broken hamate bone in his hand at the beginning of spring training and made it back for Opening Day, but landed on the injured list on April 23 due to a hamstring injury and missed almost exactly a month.
In the 46 games he has played, he's hitting .233/.315/.398 with five doubles, three triples, six home runs, 16 RBI, 24 runs, two steals and 0.8 WAR. In the previous four seasons, Lindor hit .266/.341/.471 (128 OPS+) while averaging 33 doubles, eight triples, 30 home runs, 96 RBI, 108 runs, 27 steals and 6.0 WAR per season.
He is not the sole cause of the Mets' disastrous season, but he's part of the problem. And with the trade deadline shaping up to be a seller's paradise, the 32-year-old Lindor could be one of the biggest names available on the market, headling a position-player group that includes Taylor Ward, Luis Arraez and perhaps CJ Abrams.
So, should the Mets look to trade Lindor? It's a tough question, and there's a reasonable case to be made for and against such a move.
The arguments for trading Francisco Lindor
Has he hit his decline?
I laid out the numbers above. He's been a worse player this season in nearly every way than each of the past four years and pretty much all of his career. Many great players remain productive for several years after age 32, but it isn't unheard of for a player's age-related decline to begin around this time. If this is the case and there's a market for Lindor, perhaps the Mets should get in front of the decline and cut bait before his contract makes him a sunk cost for the organization.
Getting some money off the books
Lindor is making $34.1 million this season, plus five more years and $170.5 million left on the deal after 2026. To save you the math, his deal runs through 2031.
I'm pretty confident no team in a trade would give the Mets back any players of real value if they were taking on the entire contract, which means the Mets would have to eat some of the remaining money to get back some promising prospects. Still, they'd be able to clear some of Lindor's money from their books while also getting prospects back.
The Mets could land multiple helpful pieces back
Assuming the Mets would be willing to absorb a decent portion of what is left on Lindor's deal, any team interested in a star shortstop could be willing to part with two or three useful prospects.
The basic argument would be that the Mets would be getting ahead of potentially being stuck with Lindor's full decline while saving some money and getting some high-upside players in return.
The arguments against trading Francisco Lindor
Selling low is a bad idea
If the Mets really want to get rid of Lindor and at least some of his remaining contract, why would they pull the trigger right now when his value is the lowest it has been in his entire career? Selling low as a general rule is a bad idea and that's been the case in many walks of life for a long time.
There's plenty left in the tank
The chances that he's completely fallen apart at age 32 from more than a decade in the majors as a top-flight shortstop feel rather slim to me. What's much more likely is that he rushed his rehab from the hamate surgery in the spring and wasn't fully ready for the season before the hamstring injury set him back further. He was better in the second half than the first last season and had a monster August.
He might even be heating up right now. In his last four games, Lindor is 8 for 15 with two doubles and a home run. In the month of July, he's hitting .270/.352/.460 after slashing .212/.294/.363 before the month began.
Further, this isn't a guy with a body type that ages poorly, nor is his game prone to falling apart when a certain tool deteriorates. For example, while he has speed, he hasn't been overly reliant on it in his career, so even if that starts to decline, he's fine in all other facets of his game.
If I'm Stearns, I'm seeing how he plays the rest of the season before possibly revisiting this matter in the offseason.
The Mets want to win next season
This is the big one. The Mets have one of the highest payrolls in baseball. They have a fan base clamoring to win now, as well they should, considering they were in the NLCS in 2024. Stearns took over in 2024. Steve Cohen bought the Mets in 2020. Juan Soto is 27 years old and still one of the biggest superstars and best hitters in the majors.
Add everything together and the Mets should not and absolutely cannot start over with a radical rebuild. If they aren't going to do that, Lindor heading toward his age-33 season -- taking into consideration his entire track record -- is a player you want on that team, not a player you are looking to shed.
Lindor hitting leadoff with Soto second while both are firing on all cylinders is one of the best 1-2 punches in baseball. You build around those two, not split them up.
In Lindor, we're talking about a player who was the runner-up in MVP voting to Shohei Ohtani in 2024 and finished 10th last season. He has good years left.
Keep him, do a better job this coming offseason and reload for 2027.
