Making declarations about a baseball team before the calendar turns to May is a fool’s errand, but here we are. The Mets have been so bad to begin the 2026 season that it really does feel like their season has gone down the tubes. On top of the fact that they’re 9-19 and tied with the Phillies for the worst record in baseball, they’re playing without Francisco Lindor—their most versatile and arguably best overall player—for the foreseeable future.
Even if Lindor hadn’t suffered a calf injury last week, there would be major concerns about this version of the Mets mimicking their 2024 counterparts in turning things around after a very ugly start to the season. At the time that the team fell to 24-35 in early June, there were at least some signs of life sprinkled throughout the lineup. Six players were hitting above league average by wRC+ up to that point: Mark Vientos (174 wRC+), J.D. Martinez (132 wRC+), Pete Alonso (119 wRC+), Brandon Nimmo (111 wRC+), DJ Stewart (108 wRC+), and Starling Marte (104 wRC+).
As for Lindor, he had experienced a typical slow start at the plate, but his 95 wRC+ combined with his defense at shortstop and his baserunning had him worth 1.4 fWAR on the morning of June 3, 2024. That led the team at the time.
Beginning with their win on June 3, the Mets turned into one of the best teams in baseball, and Lindor was the best player on the team by a wide margin. Over the course of 426 plate appearances, he hit an incredible .303/.376/.566 with 24 home runs and stole 21 bases, giving him 33 home runs and 29 stolen bases in total at the end of the regular season. He earned 6.2 fWAR over that stretch, too, which accounted for the vast majority if his season total of 7.7. And the last of his regular season home runs was the most important, as it gave the Mets the win they needed to clinch a playoff spot on the final day of the season.
Lindor didn’t complete the Mets’ magical comeback alone, of course. As had been the case even during their miserable skid early in that season, he was joined by plenty of above-league-average hitters for those final few months of the season: Jose Iglesias (137 wRC+), Mark Vientos (126 wRC+), Pete Alonso (123 wRC+), Jeff McNeil (113 wRC+), Tyrone Taylor (113 wRC+), Brandon Nimmo (107 wRC+), Francisco Alvarez (104 wRC+), and Starling Marte (103 wRC+). Even Luisangel Acuña, who made just 40 plate appearances, put up a 166 wRC+ as he joined the team in September, while Ben Gamel had a 108 wRC+ in 30 plate appearances.
And the lesser hitters on the team during the comeback stretch weren’t terrible, as J.D. Martinez (98 wRC+), Jesse Winker (97 wRC+), and Luis Torrens (90 wRC+) weren’t that far below league average. Harrison Bader (78 wRC+) and DJ Stewart (51 wRC+) were the only hitters who got significant playing time while really struggling at the plate.
That brings us back to this 2026 team. It would be tough to see this lineup, which has been the worst in baseball so far this year, turning things around even if Lindor were fully healthy and playing to his career norms. Juan Soto has unsurprisingly been the Mets’ best hitter this year with his .304/.418/.413 line and 141 wRC+, but the only other hitter who’s made at least 40 plate appearances and been better than league average is Francisco Alvarez (117 wRC+). Lindor, somewhat fittingly for this piece, had a 94 wRC+ when he hit the injured list, and he had really started to heat up at the plate in the games leading up to the calf injury.
To salvage this season, the Mets would need Soto to have an otherworldly stretch from now through the end of September. He’s sitting on 0.3 fWAR at the moment and probably needs to play at an 8.3 fWAR pace like he did in 2024 with the Yankees—at least while Lindor is sidelined—to get this Mets team back into a spot where playoff contention feels like a real possibility.
And even if Soto does that and Lindor’s return to major league action comes sooner than expected, the two of them simply can’t do it alone. They’d need other players on base to drive in or to get hits behind them to drive them in. It’s certainly possible—maybe even quite likely—that most of those players will improve the rest of the way. It would be hard not to. Luis Robert Jr. (94 wRC+) has cooled off after a hot start at the plate, and the rest of the Mets’ hitters have only been worse. Mark Vientos (80 wRC+), Tyrone Taylor (69 wRC+), Marcus Semien (65 wRC+), Bo Bichette (62 wRC+), Brett Baty (60 wRC+), the injured Jorge Polanco (53 wRC+), and Carson Benge (52 wRC+) are going to have to figure it out. And it’s very hard to buy that MJ Melendez (145 wRC+) is for real in his first 24 plate appearances as a Met when he has a .500 BABIP and a 45.8 percent strikeout rate.
Again, this mess looks insurmountable even in a scenario where the Mets’ entire roster is healthy. But without Francisco Lindor? It’s just so much worse.
