Francisco Lindor is back and never left

The Metropolis is now the best Rorschach test in baseball right now. When you look at them, you can see almost anything you want. A high-paying quit? certainly. A tough team? Yes. A victory in pitching development? Of course, it’s also a cautionary tale to happen when you don’t have enough appetizers to complete the entire season. Each of these topics and more deserves equal treatment. But when watching the Mets in recent weeks, I was shocked by the same observations every time I watched the game. Which observation? Man, Francisco Lindor is fine.

Lindor is right at the center of the midsummer collapse of the Mets. After starting a hot season as ever, he posted for two months in two bad months in June and July, while the team sympathized with it. I’m not sure if you know how bad it is, so let’s look at the numbers. In those two months, he hit Desultory .205/.258/.371, fitting 77 WRC+. So imagine I was surprised when I looked at this year’s batting rankings and saw Lindor’s 4.7 War in No. 11.

Now, I am writing an article to tell you Is Francisco Lindor good? I mean, kind of. But more than that, I think this is an appreciative article. Lindor’s year-on-year consistency is extraordinary. He had his final blow for the fourth consecutive five games, with the WRC+ marking between 121 and 137. He did this without feeling it was unsustainable. So let’s thank you for this greatness and see what this year’s roller coaster says about Lindo’s time in Queens.

The first thing I want to know is whether the cold to hot transition of Lindor is unprecedented, but that certainly is not. In fact, this is not even unprecedented for Lindor. Lindor has played a similar 20 game extension over the past three years and has played the same 20 games in every game in the past three years. Here is his entire Mets career, broken down into 20 games for Woba:

Many downturns and hot stripes are out of reach. On the other hand, the reason for Lindor’s 2025 Rough Patch is easy to pinpoint. On June 4, Lindor broke his little toe. By then, he had been hitting the ball while he was hitting the ball. Then, over about two months, a reasonable recovery window caused this injury, and he turned into a hitter with a below-average contact rate. Finally, with habit warnings about arbitrary end points, he certainly looks healthy:

I’m totally willing to buy Lindo’s struggle story. Generally speaking, many batsmen have power from the lower body, and it’s easy to imagine that the toes will prevent Lindor from getting the best swing frequently. His swing speed has not changed during this time, but that is not the problem here. This is more about maintaining balance, especially since the little toe is most important for stabilizing effects. If your feet don’t work, then you’re unbalanced when swinging, then hitting will become more difficult, naturally.

Shockingly, Lindor barely missed a match when dealing with his toes. The Mets played 52 games in two months after he broke his little finger. Lindor missed the first one after his injury, got stuck for the second time, and then started the next 50 in a row. In fact, he started every game since then. I just like the 50 round cutoff to really emphasize his consistency. The point is that Lindor is obviously compromised, but through it it plays a role, which meaningfully affects his results.

Lindor’s connections have long been the key to his offensive excellence. Ever wonder how a 5-foot-10 shortstop scored 30 home runs a year? This is because he catches the balls in the air and manages the average results of those hits. He has never been a great guy when it comes to turning a fly ball into a home run, but it doesn’t matter as long as you rarely strike, take a walk and put a lot of balls in the air. Although he never showed elite strength when touched, he always came close to the Grand Slam on every plate appearance (so home runs usually last due to his durability):

This is one of the acts of balance, not because Lindor can produce a huge blow, but because he is natural proficiency. His overall discipline average discipline – both his chase rate and swing rate fluctuate on the league average. However, he made sufficient connections, which reduced his strikeout rate and he improved a lot of connections. This made his power work; despite never showing excellent bat speed or peak exit speed, he bit a lot on the home run apple and hit the pull from both sides of the board due to all the flying balls he was able to hit.

If this balance sounds hard to hit, it’s because. Generating power from average raw power is very difficult! Maybe that’s what Ron Washington should have talked about Moneyball. More importantly, Lindo’s games are balanced at the edge of quality. It was great when he used enough power to get the ball out of the yard. But, the force that raised him below average, suddenly, the home run turned into flight and the equation burst.

Think of it this way: July was the worst month of Lindor’s career because of his hard hit rate when exposure rates were high. This is the lowest, including his 2021 season. If you are looking for an explanation for why he is going from excellent to bad, then “all his best contact turns into flying” can be explained as clearly as possible.

Now, will Lindor continue to hit the ball like August? Almost certainly not. This month, his hard-pressed rate on elevated contact was secondHighest His metropolitan career. It’s in a small sample because this statistic will always exist; a month of contact increase is usually about 50 hits. But he doesn’t need to keep working hard to be valuable. As long as he improves his average in contact, his ability to score that skill often without the 3-point issue gives him a high floor.

Actually, I think his months-long downturn has performed well in Lindor’s career. His game is balanced on a good edge. Making any aspect of his offense worsens, this balance actually doesn’t work. An alternative version of Lindor, he made up for this with hitting quality 25% of the time. The offensive ceiling of the version that hit too much ground will be lowered. If you don’t put a lot of balls in the air, it’s hard to shake 30 home runs at this bat speed. We just saw what happens when his contact quality drops. The extra hit rate stops flowing, a flying ball river that doesn’t leave the court is a great way to suppress your Babip and Obp.

Worse, the pitcher is not a static opponent. When Lindor’s strength began to drop, he faced more courts in the area. He saw strikes from an average of 93% of the strikes. As a result, his walking rate plummeted, further weakening his overall performance. Add a little bit of doom, the speed is slowed down (he broke his toe!), and you have all the ingredients for a month or two.

This is the case where Lindor is incorrect. Maybe the downturn isn’t always that deep, maybe the recovery isn’t always that strong, but the overall idea will hold. Lindor walks on narrow ropes to continuously improve offensive numbers 25% better than the league average. Actually, you can say that his base speed is a little better than that. He suffered a tail end injury in the 2024 season, pierced through the bone in his right elbow in 2023 and closed his finger by accidentally hitting the hotel door in 2022. Each damage brings a shocking abbreviation time, away from the team and back down.

In other words, he has been dealing with the injury problem for the past four years. During that time, he ranked third in the major leagues where cricket played. No shortstop plays a more defensive situation. Lindor also didn’t spend much time recovering, even though he dealt with a series of na injuries. He played through them, his performance accompanied by the dip and came out healthy.

In 2025, Lindor seems to have done it again. He is playing in another great season. The Mets have now exited the summer coma, with a 91.1% chance of making the playoffs after their slump depths dipped into the mid-70s. When we look back at Lindor’s 2025 years in 2025, we’ll only see him playing every day and being 25% higher than the average offensive end and being a great defender. Steep trends and rapid recovery related to injury? Dedication to 50 consecutive games with a toe fracture? They will disappear, be overshadowed by Lindor’s astonishing consistency.

All statistics are currently available through the game on August 24 (Sunday).