Things Francisco Lindor Has Never Done

If you know a Mets fan, you’re probably familiar with the speech. The speech starts like this: “Francisco Lindor is the most underrated player in baseball.” The pronunciation is really important here. You have to pronounce the so that it rhymes with he, and you have to put a big long pause between under and rated. Those are the rules. From that starting point, the speech generally continues for somewhere between 30 seconds and six hours, touching on offense, defense, MLB Network rankings, and at least two versions of WAR. I’ve never been all that sure whether the speech was necessarily true. Lindor’s greatness has always struck me as impossible to ignore. As one of the game’s premier defenders, according to both the advanced metrics and the eye test, he’s always on the highlight reels. He’s received MVP votes in six different seasons and won two Gold Gloves, one Platinum Glove, and three Silver Sluggers. He’s just 30 years old, and he’s already got the 25th-best JAWS score among all shortstops. He’s still adding to his seven-year peak, too. When I started writing this article yesterday, he ranked 26th.

But maybe I’m part of the problem. Maybe while I’ve been taking it for granted that everyone knows about Lindor’s greatness, other people have actually been taking Lindor’s greatness for granted. That would be uncool. As such, this is your annual reminder of just how great Francisco Lindor is. Because we’ve done this before, we’ll take a different tack and focus on things Lindor hasn’t done.

Be an Average Hitter

Lindor is now in his 10th big league season, and he’s never once put up a wRC+ below 101. We’ve seen Lindor have a down year at the plate, but even at his worst, he’s still been an above-average hitter. He graced the pages of FanGraphs for the first time in 2012 in an article with a title that fit perfectly with the auspiciousness of the moment: Midwest League Prospect Update. In it, Mike Newman called Lindor “A gold glove shortstop in the making,” but also wrote, “Lindor may wind up being a bit BABIP dependent.” As it turns out, even in 2021, when Lindor’s BABIP fell all the way to .248, seventh lowest among all qualified players, he managed to be an above-average hitter. I don’t bring that up to rag on Mike. If you remember the beginning of Lindor’s career, you know that although he hit throughout the minors, the hype around his glove was understandably louder. But the consistency is remarkable, especially from a switch-hitter. His career wRC+ is 126 from the right side and 115 from the left side. He’s only put up a below-average wRC+ from either side of the plate twice: He had a 94 wRC+ from the right side in 2016, and a 96 mark in ’21. According to our database, there have been 549 primary shortstops who made at least a thousand plate appearances in the AL and NL since 1903. Lindor’s career 119 wRC+ ranks 19th.

This season, Lindor’s 125 wRC+ puts him on pace for his fifth career season above 120.

Hit Fewer Than 12 Home Runs

Okay, Lindor only had eight home runs during the short 2020 season, but we’re going to let that slide. Lindor hit 12 homers as a 21-year-old rookie in 2015 and then he hit 15 in ’16. Since then, he’s hit at least 20 homers in every season where the fans were made of flesh, blood, and other gross stuff rather than cardboard. When the baseballs got juicy toward the end of the last decade, he put up three straight 30-homer seasons, including a 38-dinger bonanza in 2018, and he hasn’t fallen off that much since the great de-unjuicing. His 237 career home runs rank 10th all-time among shortstops. If we limit ourselves to home runs hit while actually playing shortstop, he moves up to sixth place, and he has a small but legitimate shot to break Cal Ripken Jr.’s record of 345.

Those 237 homers also rank 23rd all-time among switch-hitters, and Lindor should crack the top 15 early next season. Even if we control for the era, his career slugging percentage of .472 works out to a 113 SLG+, putting him 20th all-time among AL/NL shortstops.

This season, Lindor has hit 22 home runs, tied for 19th in the majors. ZiPS projects him to reach 30 for the fifth time in his career. If he does, he’ll become just the third shortstop ever to have at least five 30-homer seasons. The current club includes Alex Rodriguez with seven seasons and Ernie Banks with five.

Miss 40 Games

Starting in 2015, Lindor ranks in the top 10 in games played, plate appearances, defensive innings played, hits, runs, and stolen bases. He led the AL in plate appearances three times (and is currently leading the NL). He made his big league debut on June 14, 2015, and played in 99 of Cleveland’s 100 games from that point on. Over the next three seasons, he missed just 10 more games. Since an abdominal strain limited Lindor to 125 games in 2021, he has missed a mere three games.

Over at Baseball Prospectus, the player pages have a fun injury tracker box. (To be clear, the injury tracker box is fun; it’s not a box that only tracks fun injuries.) Because the box is small, you almost always have to scroll all the way through it to see all of a player’s injuries. But not on Lindor’s page. He’s been playing in the big leagues for 10 years and his box features injuries going all the way back to Double-A, but they’re still not enough to overflow the tiny box. No scrolling required! I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that before. As a not at all fun comparison, Mike Trout’s box only goes back to 2022 before you have to start scrolling.

So far this season, Lindor has started 113 of the Mets’ 114 games. On May 2, the day of his lone non-start, he entered as a pinch-hitter in the bottom of the sixth and went 2-for-3 with four RBI, including a walk-off double in the 11th inning. Unless he misses four games down the stretch run, he’s set to become the 31st player ever to put up six seasons of at least 158 games played.

Win an MVP Award

I think it would be hard to argue that Lindor has deserved an MVP. Even in 2018, his 7.8 WAR ranked fourth in the AL, dwarfed by the 10.2 Mookie Betts put up. (Lindor placed sixth that year.) Lindor has received MVP votes in six seasons, but finished as high as fifth once. He’s has been constructing his Hall of Fame case by piling up great seasons year after year, but I don’t think it’s a slight to say that he’s never put together the one towering, undeniable campaign that’s usually required to snag an MVP.

I’m bringing it up because he’s got a real chance this season. Lindor is currently tied with Ketel Marte for third in the National League with 5.2 WAR. They trail Elly De La Cruz and Shohei Ohtani by a measly half a win. There’s a bigger gap according to Baseball Reference WAR, with Lindor at 4.6 and Marte and Ohtani at 5.9, but that’s still a close race, and the winner is almost certainly going to be whichever one of those four players can find another gear over the stretch run. As one of the best players in the league for a full decade now, and with a chance to drag the Mets into a Wild Card berth, Lindor might also have a case that appeals to voters who appreciate a good narrative. This could be his chance.

Make the All-Star Team This Decade

Yeah, that one surprised me too. There have been only four All-Star Games in the last five years, but it’s still pretty shocking. Lindor started his career by finishing second in the AL Rookie of the Year voting, then went four years in a row with a top-15 finish in the MVP voting, either a Gold Glove or a Silver Slugger, and an All-Star selection. And then after that, he’s gotten a nice, long vacation every July.

Over the last four seasons, here’s where he’s ranked among NL shortstops going into the All-Star break.

Over the first five years of his career, he averaged 6.5 WAR per 162 games. Over the past five, he’s averaged 6.0 and finished top 10 in the MVP voting twice, so it’s not like he’s fallen off hard. This decade, he has 22.9 WAR, the seventh most in baseball. He’s missed out on four All-Star selections, while the six players ahead of him have combined to miss out on two. Maybe he is just a little bit underrated after all.