If you know a Mets fan, you probably know the speech. The speech begins as follows: “Francisco Lindor is the best underrated player in baseball.” The pronunciation is really important here. You have to The so that it rhymes with Heand you have to take a long break in between under And rated. Those are the rules. From that starting point, the speech generally lasts anywhere from 30 seconds to six hours, touching on offense, defense, MLB Network rankings and at least two versions of WAR. I was never quite sure the speech was necessarily true. Lindor’s greatness always seemed impossible to ignore to me. One of the game’s best defenders, according to both advanced metrics and the eye test, he’s always in the highlight videos. He’s been voted MVP in six different seasons and won two Gold Gloves, one Platinum Glove and three Silver Sluggers. He’s just 30 years old and already has the 25th-best JAWS score of any shortstop. And he’s still adding to his seven-year high. When I started writing this article yesterday, he was ranked 26th.
But maybe I’m part of the problem. Maybe I’ve taken it for granted that everyone knows Lindor’s greatness, while other people have taken Lindor’s greatness for granted. That would be uncool. So this is your annual reminder of how great Francisco Lindor is. Since we’ve done this before, we’re going to take a different approach and focus on things Lindor didn’t do.
Be an average batsman
Now in his 10th major league season, Lindor has never posted a wRC+ below 101. We’ve seen Lindor have a down year at bat, but even in his worst years, he was still an above-average hitter. He first graced the pages of FanGraphs in 2012 in an article with a title that perfectly fit the opportune moment of the moment: Midwest League Prospect Update. In it, Mike Newman called Lindor “a budding Gold Glove shortstop,” but also wrote, “Lindor might end up being a bit BABIP-dependent.” As it turns out, even in 2021, when Lindor’s BABIP dipped to .248, the seventh-lowest of all qualified players, he managed to be an above-average hitter. I’m not mentioning this to criticize Mike. If you remember the beginning of Lindor’s career, you know that even though he consistently got hits in the minors, the hype around his glove was understandably louder. But the consistency is remarkable, especially for a switch hitter. His career wRC+ is 126 from the right side and 115 from the left. He’s only posted a below-average wRC+ from both sides of the plate twice: He had a 94 wRC+ from the right side in 2016 and a mark of 96 in 2021. According to our database, there have been 549 primary shortstops since 1903 who have had at least a thousand plate appearances in the AL and NL. Lindor’s career wRC+ of 119 ranks 19th.
With his wRC+ of 125, Lindor is on pace to post his fifth career season above 120 this season.
Hit fewer than 12 home runs
OK, Lindor only had eight home runs in the short 2020 season, but we’ll let that slide. Lindor hit 12 home runs as a 21-year-old rookie in 2015 and then 15 in 2016. Since then, he’s hit at least 20 home runs in every season where the fans were made of flesh, blood and other gross stuff and not cardboard. When the balls got exciting toward the end of the last decade, he put up three consecutive 30-home run seasons, including a 38-dinger bonanza in 2018, and he hasn’t slowed down that much since the big juicing. His 237 career home runs rank 10th all-time among shortstops. If we limit ourselves to the home runs he actually hits as a shortstop, he moves up to sixth place and has a small but legitimate chance of breaking Cal Ripken Jr.’s record of 345.
Home runs as shortstop
SOURCE: Stathead
* Due to incomplete records, the total number of banks may be slightly underestimated.
Those 237 home runs also rank 23rd all-time among switch hitters, and Lindor should break into the top 15 early next season. Even when we take era into account, his career slugging percentage of .472 yields an SLG+ of 113, which ranks him 20th all-time among AL/NL shortstops.
This season, Lindor has hit 22 home runs, which ranks 19th in the major leagues. ZiPS projects that he will hit 30 home runs for the fifth time in his career. If he does that, he would become only the third shortstop ever to have at least five 30-home run seasons. The current club includes Alex Rodriguez with seven seasons and Ernie Banks with five.
Miss 40 Games
Since 2015, Lindor has ranked in the top 10 in games played, batting appearances, defensive innings played, hits, runs and stolen bases. He led the AL in batting appearances three times (and is currently the NL leader). He made his major league debut on June 14, 2015, and played in 99 of Cleveland’s 100 games from that point on, missing just 10 more games over the next three seasons. Limited to playing in 125 games in 2021 due to an abdominal muscle strain, Lindor has missed just three games.
About at Baseball Prospectusthe player pages have a fun injury tracking box. (To be clear: The injury tracking 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 to see all of a player’s injuries. But not on Lindor’s page. He’s been in the major leagues for 10 years, and his box includes injuries going all the way back to Double-A, but they’re still not enough to overfill the tiny box. No scrolling required! I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that before. As a not-at-all-funny comparison, Mike Trout’s box only goes back to 2022 before you have to start scrolling.
Lindor has started 113 of the Mets’ 114 games so far this season. On May 2, the day of his only non-start, he entered the game as a pinch hitter in the bottom of the sixth inning and went 2-for-3 with four RBIs, including a walk-off double in the 11th inning. If he doesn’t miss four games in the final stretch, he will become the 31st player all-time to complete six seasons with at least 158 games played.
Win an MVP Award
I think it would be hard to argue that Lindor deserved an MVP. Even in 2018, his 7.8 WAR was the fourth-best player in the AL, surpassed by Mookie Betts’ 10.2. (Lindor finished sixth that year.) Lindor received MVP votes in six seasons, but once finished as low as fifth. He has built up his chances of a spot in the Hall of Fame with great seasons year after year, but I don’t think it’s an insult to say he never had the one outstanding, unquestionable season that is usually required to snag an MVP.
I mention it because he has a real chance this season. Lindor is currently tied with Ketel Marte for third in the National League with 5.2 WAR. They are just a half-win behind Elly De La Cruz and Shohei Ohtani. According to Baseball Reference WAR, the gap is wider: Lindor has 4.6 and Marte and Ohtani have 5.9, but it’s still a close race and the winner will almost certainly be whichever of these four players can shift up a gear down the stretch. As one of the league’s best players for a full decade now and with a chance to put the Mets in a Wild Card spot, Lindor could also appeal to voters who appreciate a good story. This could be his chance.
Make it to the All-Star team this decade
Yes, that surprised me too. There have only been four All-Star games in the last five years, but that’s still pretty shocking. Lindor started his career by finishing second in the AL Rookie of the Year voting, then he won a Gold Glove four years in a row, finished in the top 15 in the MVP voting, and was voted an All-Star. And after that, he had a nice, long vacation every July.
Here is his ranking among NL shortstops over the last four seasons before the All-Star break.
Lindor in the first half
| Year | WAR | SS rank | All-Star selection |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 2.5 | 4(T) | NO |
| 2022 | 3.3 | 3 | NO |
| 2023 | 2.9 | 1(T) | Still no |
| 2024 | 4.2 | 2 | Seriously? |
He averaged 6.5 WAR per 162 games in the first five years of his career. Over the last five years, he’s averaged 6.0 and finished in the top 10 in MVP voting twice, so it’s not like he’s dropped off much. This decade, he has 22.9 WAR, the seventh-highest in baseball. He has been voted non-All-Star four times, while the six players ahead of him combined have been voted only twice. Maybe he’s just a little underrated after all.
