How Francisco Lindor became the heart and soul of the Mets
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Jeff Passan, ESPN
BEFORE EVERY GAME, Francisco Lindor flits around the New York Mets‘ clubhouse, stopping at the lockers of green rookies and grizzled veterans, players from the United States and Venezuela and Japan and Cuba and the Dominican Republic. It’s his ritual now, one performed out of equal parts desire and duty.
“I look forward to it every day,” Mets left-hander Sean Manaea said. “The consistency, the positivity — he really is like that every day.”
He does it after the game, too, regardless of the circumstances, and whether it’s with a pat on the back, a dap, a joke, a compliment, a wisecrack, a question or an embrace, Lindor seemingly manages the impossible: marrying extreme levels of wholesomeness with a sincerity that keeps it from growing cheesy. Earlier this month, after the Seattle Mariners held the Mets to one run in a three-game sweep, Lindor “is just walking around and saying: turn the page, enjoy the flight, enjoy your families, we’ll get ’em Tuesday,” said Mets reliever Adam Ottavino. “He is just hugging everybody, slapping five with everybody, making sure that we’re all together. Because that’s exactly who he is.”
To those unfamiliar with the rhythms of a baseball season, Lindor’s dismissal of a bad series could suggest a lack of care or urgency. In reality, the opposite is true. Lindor is the metronome. Now 30 years old and in his 10th major league season, he is acutely attuned to what the Mets’ clubhouse needs at any given moment — and, in fact, those inside it give him credit for launching the team back into playoff contention after a hellacious tailspin earlier this year.
This position in Queens didn’t necessarily come easily for Lindor. After six drama-free years with Cleveland, his first season with the Mets in 2021 saw Lindor wrap his hands around the neck of his double-play partner in the tunnel during a game, flash a thumbs-down sign to fans who had booed his substandard performance and generally fail to ingratiate himself in the manner of a star who signed a 10-year, $341 million contract. The next year, he was featured prominently in the Mets’ renaissance as they won 101 games. Last season, they flopped, having baseball’s highest-ever payroll at more than $400 million but finishing nowhere close to even a .500 record. And now, in a year when little was expected, Lindor has grown into the best version of himself.
Which is saying something, because for a decade now, Lindor has been one of the finest players in baseball, building the sort of résumé to pave a path 200 miles from Queens to Cooperstown. He is nearly halfway to 3,000 hits and 500 home runs. He plays shortstop with grace and flash and consistency, with precious-metal gloves — two gold, one platinum — to show for it. In all of baseball history, only four shortstops finished their first 10 years with more Baseball-Reference wins above replacement (WAR) than Lindor’s 48.0: Arky Vaughan, Alex Rodriguez, Cal Ripken Jr. and Pee Wee Reese.
Since 2015, Lindor ranks third among all MLB players in FanGraphs WAR behind only Mookie Betts and Mike Trout. And both by WAR and impact, this could be his greatest season yet. He tops the National League leaderboard, ahead of Shohei Ohtani and Ketel Marte, is one of seven players to have not missed a game this season and Thursday became the first shortstop ever with three seasons of 25 home runs and 25 stolen bases. He has found the sweet spot of personal and professional growth, embracing the responsibilities of the face of a New York sports franchise while staying true to who he aspires to be. And with it have come the MVP chants at Citi Field, three letters that tell as much of a story about who he is as what he has done.
“It brings a smile to my face because it would be a dream,” Lindor said, “but I understand we’ve still got a long way to go, and I’ve got to put up way better numbers. If the fans feel that way, it’s fantastic. But I got to continue to climb. I got to continue to help the team win.
“MVPs are not won in June and July. MVPs are won in August and September.”
SINCE LINDOR ARRIVED in a January 2021 blockbuster trade, the Mets have gone through five heads of baseball operations and three managers. Last year, over the course of just eight months, the team went from all-in to fire sale. Then the hiring this winter of David Stearns, widely regarded as one of the game’s best executives, brought a leader to a front office that under new owner Steve Cohen had grown increasingly efficient and modernized. Stearns’ hiring of Carlos Mendoza to run the on-field product was the final touch of stability for an operation that had spent most of the previous three decades foundering, practically capsizing, on account of an almost intrinsic ability to blunder.
Mendoza, a baseball lifer who had spent the previous four years as New York Yankees bench coach, understood his first priority as manager: ensure he and Lindor were on the same page. Mendoza had seen firsthand how Aaron Judge‘s support of Aaron Boone paid dividends inside the clubhouse — and that would be even more true in one with as many young players as the Mets expected to rely on.
“I needed him to trust me and I needed to get to know him,” said Mendoza, who also offered Lindor the chance to focus on the field if he thought it would better serve him. “That was my biggest messaging [to him]: ‘I appreciate the fact that you want to be a leader, but you have a big job. You’ve got to play shortstop for the New York Mets every day.’
“What I didn’t get is he can do it all. Everybody sees what’s happening on the field, but the person, the father, the husband, the quality of the human that he is — this guy is special, man. Everything is so detail oriented. The way he prepares is unbelievable. And he’s to a place now where New York is home for him.”
The Mets opened the season at home with five straight losses. They followed by winning 12 of their next 15. They finished April at 15-14. “And I’m looking forward to May,” Lindor said, looking back. “It’s going to get warm. Things are going to get better. And then they didn’t.”
It was, Lindor said, “very baseball.” The Mets weren’t getting blown out. They were just losing. A lot. Nineteen times over the next 26 games. The ugliness was reinforcing the expectation internally that the Mets would again spend trade deadline season subtracting from their roster. By the end of the month, their record dropped to 22-33, after a May 29 loss in which reliever Jorge Lopez responded to an ejection by throwing his glove into the Citi Field stands.
“I was getting ready to call a meeting,” Mendoza said. “And before I went to do my press conference, I was walking by and it’s like, ‘hey, the players are meeting.'”
Meetings helmed by players, particularly during chaotic periods in a season, can devolve into meandering festivals of grievance. Lindor had gathered them anyway. He has struggled in the past knowing when to speak or how much to say, but this players-only get-together would hinge on his ability to keep a losing team focused — and by then, he had earned their attention. All of the times patting his teammates’ backs and making them laugh and lifting them up bought Lindor the ability to speak without coming off as a blowhard.
“For him to sound the alarm is a tool that needs to be used in a very sparing way,” Cohen said. “Otherwise, it gets tuned out. But he knows his team, he knows the people, he’s at the stage in his life where he’s seen a lot, there’s a sense of emotional maturity and he’s really thoughtful.”
Lindor, who himself had spent the season’s first two months on the struggle bus — he was hitting .211/.279/372 through nearly 250 plate appearances — simply wanted the Mets players to ask themselves a question: “Are you actually working?” Were they running out ground balls? Or making the best effort to track down fly balls? Were they early for meetings instead of loping in when they were starting? Did their effort in all areas of the game reflect the sort of team they want to be?
“We didn’t have an identity yet as a team,” Ottavino said. “We were together, but we weren’t. I think guys were still thinking about other years, and sometimes it takes a while for the team to be in the moment. And I felt like finally after that game, after that meeting, we did kind of throw away a lot of the preconceived thoughts about what the season was going to be. And I think the team focused their energies a little better as a unit.”
Others spoke up. Manaea, the 32-year-old starting pitcher who had joined the Mets over the winter, pointed at other teams prioritizing fun, particularly on the basepaths. “I basically just said we need something to rally around,” Manaea said. “We’d just played the Dodgers. They have their thing. The Guardians have the Super Mario thing. You look at all these teams, and they have something everyone on the team rallies around.”
Both Francisco Lindor and Carlos Mendoza said that the celebration from Jesse Winker after his base hit in the 2nd inning set the tone for tonight’s energy pic.twitter.com/6pvu26UuCN
— SNY Mets (@SNY_Mets) August 15, 2024
And thus began the Mets celebrating extra-base hits by — well, they slap the air. Some players opt for forehand only, while others go forehand-backhand and put some oomph into it. Though the intended target of the air swings remains a secret held tight by the players, quickly they found themselves air-slapping with regularity. In the first game after the meeting, Lindor went 4 for 4. The Mets won two in a row, then three straight shortly after. Grimace, the McDonald’s character and anthropomorphic taste bud, threw out the first pitch at Citi Field on June 12, and the Mets promptly ripped off seven consecutive wins.
Lindor and his teammates were quick to say: The Mets didn’t start winning because of the meeting. But it was the start of something. Soon after the players-only session, hitting coach Eric Chavez tore apart the team’s offense during a hitters’ meeting of his own. Mets players didn’t balk. They needed accountability to ensure that 22-33 lived only as a reminder of what had been.
“We live in a market where success is the only thing that matters,” Lindor said. “We are athletes, and we have to get it done. The best thing is how hungry the whole organization is to get better, to continue to find a way of accomplishing the ultimate goal. For me, the ultimate goal is to win and have a sustainable franchise where I’m playing for the playoffs every single year.”
And so as the season builds toward August and September, the focus for Lindor narrows. The leeway for him to slump dissipates. Since the day after the meeting, he is hitting .308/.383/.556 with 17 home runs and 19 stolen bases in 72 games. Only Judge and Bobby Witt Jr., the two best players in baseball this season, have more WAR in that stretch. “And that,” Manaea said, “is the stuff I love. The grind of a season. Having the ups and downs. And being able to right the ship and play for something special at the end. There are so few guys who have suited up every single game. And Francisco’s year mirrors our season. Didn’t really start off the year as good as he’d hoped for, but to be where he was and where we’re at now, it’s incredible.”
Only recently have the NL standings shaken out, with Pittsburgh and St. Louis faltering, San Diego and Arizona surging and the Mets finding themselves in prime position to take the last wild-card spot from their longtime rival, Atlanta. The Braves are banged up and have been all season, and though the Mets are missing their ace, Kodai Senga, and elbow issues have thinned their relief corps, their lineup is filled with the sorts of .400-plus-slugging hitters that Atlanta currently just can’t match.
The realistic chance to play in October compels Mendoza to keep trying to give Lindor a break. Take a day, he suggests. Nope, Lindor responds. Way back in spring training, Lindor was hyperspecific with Mendoza that he wanted to spend a particular number of minutes on his feet — rather than an exact number of innings played — on game days. October baseball is why. Lindor is intensely aware of his body’s capability, and he wants August and September — the MVP months — to be when he peaks.
“Here we are in August and I’m trying to tell him, like, dude, you got to back up back off a little bit,” Mendoza said. “He’s like, ‘no, I’ve got to show the way.’ I’m literally trying to do things like, let’s show up a little later to the ballpark just to give the guys a little bit of a break. And he’s the first one out there. He’s the first one on the field. He’s always taking batting practice; he’s taking ground balls. I’m like, I’m thinking about giving you a day and it’s like, ‘Monday is my day off, Mendy. I want Monday.’ Which is a scheduled off day for the team.
“On one hand it’s kind of frustrating. You don’t want the guy to burn himself out. But on the other hand, what a great example and what a great gift that you have not having to urge your leader and your star to be the example setter for everyone else. He just naturally gravitates to that.”
FROM THE MEETING to Grimace to journeyman Jose Iglesias dropping a chart-topping single while batting .335, the Mets’ 2024 season has served at least one purpose: to entertain. Compared to last year’s root canal, this has been a fun season, and starring a fun team, particularly when its offense comes alive (and the Mets’ conflagrant bullpen — the homer-happiest in the NL — avoids combusting again).
All of this matters to Lindor, as, increasingly, does the trajectory of the team, because the best remaining years of his career will be spent with it. Lindor’s contract runs through the 2031 season. He’ll turn 38 shortly thereafter. If he is going to win a championship, it will come with the Mets. And who would surround him on a title-winning team is starting to reveal itself. Brandon Nimmo is in the outfield and Francisco Alvarez behind the plate. Mark Vientos could stick at third base or potentially shift to first if Pete Alonso leaves in free agency. There’s probably a spot for Jeff McNeil, whose power has surged post-meeting, and rookie infielder Ronny Mauricio, who’s out for the season with a torn ACL. Their next generation of position players has ranged from injured (Jett Williams) to OK (Ryan Clifford) to eh (Luisangel Acuna) to not good (Colin Houck). The heart of a good rotation is there, with a healthy Senga, the electric young arms of Brandon Sproat and Christian Scott, David Peterson logging innings and Edwin Diaz finishing games.
“The more I talk with Steve, the more I talk with David, I do believe that we are going in the right direction,” Lindor said. “They’re very methodical. And that to me is a great way of running a company, a franchise or living life. They’re extremely smart, and they believe in the data, but also the data is not going to make the decision for them. The analytics is not just everything. They gather information from everybody. They believe in the human element and they believe in the computer and I think that’s fantastic.”
When Cohen bought the Mets, he said his goal was to win a championship in the first three to five seasons. This is Year 4. The juggernaut dreams ran into the reality that building a sustainably good baseball team takes time and process more than it does money.
Still, passing the Braves, even in an off year, would chisel away at the reputation of near-impermeability Atlanta has spent decades fostering. It’s the excellence of which Lindor dreams.
“He is consistent with his narrative as a leader, which is all about winning,” Ottavino said. “He always sheds light on the winning aspect. He’s not somebody that is going to talk about his own achievements or his own stats, yet he’s very good at celebrating other people’s accomplishments. So if somebody hits a milestone or does something special, Francisco is usually the one who’s quick to point that out after the game and make sure we’re all celebrating the team and the guys and making everybody feel good in that way.
Tonight kicks off a vital road trip in which the Mets will visit San Diego for four games and Arizona for three before a three-game respite against the Chicago White Sox. New York’s schedule softens slightly in early September but makes up for it with as gnarly an end-of-the-season docket as there is: four against the Philadelphia Phillies, three at Atlanta, three at the Milwaukee Brewers.
It could signal the conclusion of a solid season for the Mets or the beginning of a potentially great one. That they’re even in this position says this year is an unequivocal success for a team that looked one meeting from collapsing. Instead, there is meaningful August and September baseball in Queens and one man in particular looking forward to soaking in the next round of chants.
“I’m proud to be a New York Met,” Lindor said. “But my job is not done. I haven’t done what it takes to win. We haven’t won the World Series. So I don’t want to say I’ve done my job to the ultimate end. I feel like not until the day we win, when I have the opportunity to give the trophy to Steve or Alex and say we did it, the job is not done.
“And then since we’re in New York, nobody’s going to care in the next year. So we got to go out and do it again.”
Hard-throwing rookie Jacob Misiorowski is a National League All-Star replacement, giving the Milwaukee Brewers right-hander a chance to break Paul Skenes‘ record for the fewest big league appearances before playing in the Midsummer Classic.
Misiorowski was named Friday night to replace Chicago Cubs lefty Matthew Boyd, who will be unavailable for the All-Star Game on Tuesday night in Atlanta because he is scheduled to start Saturday at the New York Yankees.
The 23-year-old Misiorowski has made just five starts for the Brewers, going 4-1 with a 2.81 ERA while averaging 99.3 mph on his fastball, with 89 pitches that have reached 100 mph.
If he pitches at Truist Park, Misiorowski will make it consecutive years for a player to set the mark for fewest big league games before an All-Star showing.
Skenes, the Pittsburgh Pirates right-hander getting ready for his second All-Star appearance, had made 11 starts in the majors when he was chosen as the NL starter for last year’s All-Star Game at Texas. He pitched a scoreless inning.
“I’m speechless,” said a teary-eyed Misiorowski, who said he was given the news a few minutes before the Brewers’ 8-3 victory over Washington. “It’s awesome. It’s very unexpected and it’s an honor.”
Misiorowski is the 30th first-time All-Star and 16th replacement this year. There are now 80 total All-Stars.
“He’s impressive. He’s got some of the best stuff in the game right now, even though he’s a young pitcher,” said Yankees slugger Aaron Judge, who is a starting AL outfielder for his seventh All-Star nod. “He’s going to be a special pitcher in this game for a long time so I think he deserved it and it’s going be pretty cool for him and his family.”
Carlos Rodón, Carlos Estévez and Casey Mize were named replacement pitchers on the AL roster.
The New York Yankees‘ Rodón, an All-Star for the third time in five seasons, will replace teammate Max Fried for Tuesday’s game in Atlanta. Fried will be unavailable because he is scheduled to start Saturday against the Chicago Cubs.
In his final start before the All-Star game, Rodón allowed four hits and struck out eight in eight innings in an 11-0 victory over the Cubs.
“This one’s a little special for me,” said Rodón, an All-Star in 2021 and ’22 who was 3-8 in his first season with the Yankees two years ago before rebounding. “I wasn’t good when I first got here, and I just wanted to prove that I wasn’t to going to give up and just put my best foot forward and try to win as many games as I can.”
The Kansas City Royals‘ Estévez replaces Texas’ Jacob deGrom, who is scheduled to start at Houston on Saturday night. Estévez was a 2023 All-Star when he was with the Los Angeles Angels.
Mize takes the spot held by Boston‘s Garrett Crochet, who is scheduled to start Saturday against Tampa Bay. Mize gives the Tigers six All-Stars, most of any team and tied for the franchise record.
Royals third baseman Maikel Garcia will replace Tampa Bay‘s Brandon Lowe, who went on the injured list with left oblique tightness. The additions of Estévez and Garcia give the Royals four All-Stars, matching their 2024 total.
The Seattle Mariners announced center fielder Julio Rodríguez will not participate, and he was replaced by teammate Randy Arozarena. Rodríguez had been voted onto the AL roster via the players’ ballot. The Mariners, who have five All-Stars, said Rodríguez will use the break to “recuperate, rest and prepare for the second half.”
Arozarena is an All-Star for the second time. He started in left field for the AL two years ago, when he was with Tampa Bay. Arozarena was the runner-up to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in the 2023 Home Run Derby.
Rays right-hander Drew Rasmussen, a first-time All-Star, is replacing Angels left-hander Yusei Kikuchi, who is scheduled to start Saturday night at Arizona. Rasmussen is 7-5 with a 2.82 ERA in 18 starts.
San Diego added a third NL All-Star reliever in lefty Adrián Morejón, who replaces Philadelphia starter Zack Wheeler. The Phillies’ right-hander is scheduled to start at San Diego on Saturday night. Morejón entered the weekend with a 1.71 ERA in 45 appearances.
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David Schoenfield
We’re past due to hand out some midseason grades, so let’s hand out some midseason grades.
As we pass the 90-game mark in the 2025 MLB season, my team of the first half isn’t the well-rounded Detroit Tigers, who do get our highest grade for owning MLB’s best record, or the explosive Chicago Cubs or Shohei Ohtani‘s Los Angeles Dodgers, but a team most baseball fans love to hate: the Houston Astros. They lost their two best players from last season and their best hitter has been injured — and they’re playing their best baseball since they won the 2022 World Series.
Let’s get to the grades. As always, we’re grading off preseason expectations, factoring in win-loss record and quality of performance, while looking at other positive performances and injuries.
Jump to a team:
AL East: BAL | BOS | NYY | TB | TOR
AL Central: CHW | CLE | DET | KC | MIN
AL West: ATH | HOU | LAA | SEA | TEX
NL East: ATL | MIA | NYM | PHI | WSH
NL Central: CHC | CIN | MIL | PIT | STL
NL West: ARI | COL | LAD | SD | SF
Tarik Skubal is obviously the headline act, but the Tigers are winning with impressive depth across the entire roster.
Javier Baez is putting together a remarkable comeback season after a couple of abysmal years and will become the first player to start an All-Star Game at both shortstop and in the outfield. Former No. 1 overall picks Casey Mize and Spencer Torkelson have put together their own comeback stories, while Riley Greene has matured into one of the game’s top power hitters.
Given their deep well of prospects and contributors at the MLB level, no team is better positioned than the Tigers to add significant help at the trade deadline.
I heard someone refer to them as the Zombie Astros, which feels apropos. Alex Bregman left as a free agent, they traded Kyle Tucker, Yordan Alvarez has been injured and has just three home runs, and the Jose Altuve experiment in left field predictably fizzled.
But here they are, fighting for the best record in the majors and holding a comfortable lead in the AL West. They’re getting star turns from Hunter Brown, Framber Valdez and Jeremy Pena, while the risky decision to start Cam Smith in the majors with very little minor league experience has paid off, as he has now become their cleanup hitter.
If we ignore the COVID-19 season, the Astros look on their way to an eighth straight division title.
This could be at least a half-grade higher based on everything that has gone right: Pete Crow-Armstrong‘s attention-grabbing breakout, Tucker doing everything expected after the big trade, Seiya Suzuki‘s monster power numbers and Matthew Boyd‘s All-Star turn in the rotation. The Cubs are on pace for their most wins since their World Series title season in 2016.
There have been a few hiccups, however, especially in the rotation with Justin Steele‘s season-ending injury and Ben Brown‘s inconsistency, plus rookie third baseman Matt Shaw has scuffled, and the bench has been weak aside from their backup catchers.
Still, this is a powerhouse lineup, and the Cubs will seek to improve their rotation at the deadline.
They just keep winning of late, going from 25-27 and seven games behind the Yankees on May 25 to taking over first place from the slumping Bronx Bombers, a remarkable turnaround over just 36 games. They went 27-9 over a 36-game stretch ending with their eighth win in a row on Sunday.
George Springer‘s recent surge has been fun to watch, a reminder of how good he was at his peak, and Addison Barger has been mashing over the past two months.
Some of the stats don’t add up to the Blue Jays being this good — they’ve barely outscored their opponents — but there might be more offense in the tank from the likes of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and a healthy Anthony Santander, and the bullpen, a soft spot, is the easiest area to upgrade.
Their success is best summed up by the fact that Freddy Peralta is their lone All-Star, but they have a whole bunch of players who have contributed between 1 and 2 WAR.
Brandon Woodruff looked good Sunday in his first start in nearly two years, so that could be a huge boost for the second half.
I’m curious to see how Jackson Chourio performs as well. While his counting stats — extra-base hits, RBIs — are fine, his triple-slash line remains below last season, especially his OBP. He had a huge second half in 2024 (.310/.363/.552), and if he does that again, the Brewers could find themselves back in the postseason for the seventh time in eight seasons.
The Rays started off slow, with a losing record through the end of April, but then went 33-22 in May and June to claw back into the AL East race — as the Rays usually do, last year being the recent exception.
Two key performers have been All-Star third baseman Junior Caminero, who has a chance to become just the third player to hit 40 home runs in his age-21 season, and All-Star first baseman Jonathan Aranda.
Due to the league wanting the Rays to play more home games early in the season, the July and August slate will be very road-heavy, so we’ll see how the Rays adapt to a difficult two-month stretch, especially since their pitching isn’t quite as deep as it has been in other seasons.
No, they’re not going to be the greatest team of all time. But they might win 100 games — even though Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki, their huge offseason acquisitions, have combined for just two wins in 10 starts.
The lineup, of course, has been terrific, with Ohtani leading the NL in several categories and Will Smith leading the batting race. By wRC+, it’s been the best offense in Dodgers history.
If they can get some combo of Snell, Sasaki and Tyler Glasnow healthy, plus Ohtani eventually ramped up to a bigger workload on the mound, the Dodgers still loom as World Series favorites.
They are on pace for 95 wins, mainly on the strength of Zack Wheeler, Ranger Suarez and Cristopher Sanchez, who are a combined 23-7 with 11.8 WAR. Jesus Luzardo‘s ERA is bloated due to that two-start stretch when he allowed 20 runs, but he has otherwise been solid as well.
But, overall, it hasn’t always been the smoothest of treks. The bullpen has imploded a few times and the offense has lacked power aside from Kyle Schwarber. Bryce Harper is back after missing three weeks, and they need to get his bat going. Look for some bullpen additions at the trade deadline — and perhaps an outfielder as well.
The Cardinals have been a minor surprise — perhaps even to the Cardinals themselves. St. Louis was viewing this as a rebuilding year of sorts — not that the Cardinals ever hit rock bottom and start completely over. They had a hot May, winning 12 of 13 at one point, but the offense has been fading of late, with those three straight shutout losses to Pittsburgh and six shutout losses since June 25.
The starting rotation doesn’t generate a lot of swing and miss, with both Erick Fedde and Miles Mikolas seeing their ERAs starting to climb. Brendan Donovan is the team’s only All-Star rep, and that kind of sums up this team: solid but without any star power. That might foretell a second-half fade.
All-Star starting pitchers Logan Webb and Robbie Ray, plus a dominant bullpen, have led the way, although after starting 12-4, the Giants have basically been a .500 team for close to three months now. Rafael Devers hasn’t yet ignited the offense since coming over from Boston, and the Giants have lost four 1-0 games.
These final three games at home against the Dodgers before the All-Star break will be a crucial series, as Los Angeles has slowly pulled away in the NL West.
This was an “A-plus” through June 12, when the Mets were 45-24 and owned the best record in baseball, even though Juan Soto hadn’t gotten hot. Soto finally got going in June, but the pitching collapsed, and the Mets went through a disastrous 1-10 stretch.
The rotation injuries have piled up, exacerbating the lack of bullpen depth. Recent games have been started by Justin Hagenman (who had a 6.21 ERA in Triple-A), journeyman reliever Chris Devenski, Paul Blackburn (7.71 ERA) and Frankie Montas, who has had to start even though he’s clearly not throwing the ball well. The Mets need to get the rotation healthy, but also could use more offense from Mark Vientos and their catchers (Francisco Alvarez was demoted to Triple-A).
At times it has felt like Cal Raleigh has been a one-man team with his record-breaking first half. But he will be joined on the All-Star squad by starting pitcher Bryan Woo, closer Andres Munoz and center fielder Julio Rodriguez, who made it on the strength of his defense, as his offense has been a disappointment.
The offense has been one of the best in the majors on the road, but the rotation has been nowhere near as effective as the past couple of seasons, with George Kirby, Logan Gilbert and Bryce Miller all missing time with injuries. They just shut out the Pirates three games in a row, so maybe that will get the rotation on a roll.
They’re just out of the wild-card picture while hanging around .500, so we give them a decent grade since that exceeds preseason expectations. It feels like a little bit of a mirage given their run differential — their record in one-run games (good) versus their record in blowout games (not good) — and various holes across the lineup and pitching staff.
But they’ve done two things to keep them in the race. One, they hit a lot of home runs. Two, they’re the only team in the majors to use just five starting pitchers. The rotation hasn’t been stellar, but it’s been stable.
The Padres are probably fortunate to be where they are, given some of their issues. As expected, the offensive depth has been a problem.
Not as expected, Dylan Cease has struggled while Michael King‘s injury after a strong start has left them without last year’s dynamic 1-2 punch at the top of the rotation (although Nick Pivetta has been one of the best signings of the offseason). Yu Darvish just made his season debut Monday, so hopefully he’ll provide a lift.
The Padres haven’t played well against the better teams, including a 2-5 record against the Dodgers, but they did clean up against the Athletics, Rockies and Pirates, going 16-2 against those three teams.
For now, the Reds are stuck in neutral. Leave out 2022, when they lost 100 games, and it’s otherwise been a string of .500-ish seasons: 31-29 in 2020, 83-79 in 2021, 82-80 in 2023, 77-85 in 2024 and now a similar record so far in 2025.
The hope was that Terry Francona would be a difference-maker. Maybe that will play out down the stretch, but the best hope is to get the rotation clicking on all cylinders at the same time. That means Andrew Abbott continuing his breakout performance, plus getting Hunter Greene healthy again and rookie Chase Burns to live up to the hype after a couple of shaky outings following an impressive MLB debut.
Throw in Nick Lodolo and solid Nick Martinez and Brady Singer, and this group can be good enough to pitch the Reds to their first full-season playoff appearance since 2013.
The Yankees have hit their annual midseason swoon — which has been subject to much intense analysis from their disgruntled fans — and that opening weekend sweep of the Brewers, when the Yankees’ torpedo bats were the big story in baseball, now seems long ago.
Going from seven up to three back in such a short time is a disaster — but not disastrous. Nonetheless, the Yankees will have to do some hard-core self-evaluation heading to the trade deadline.
The offense wasn’t going to be as good as it was in April, when Paul Goldschmidt, Trent Grisham and Ben Rice were all playing over their heads. So, do they need a hitter? Or with Clarke Schmidt now likely joining Gerrit Cole as a Tommy John casualty, do they need a starting pitcher? Or both?
From the book of “things we didn’t expect,” page 547: The Marlins are averaging more runs per game than the Orioles, Padres, Braves and Rangers, to name a few teams. They’re averaging almost as many runs per game as the Mets, and last time we checked, the Marlins weren’t the team to give Soto $765 million.
An eight-game winning streak at the end of June has the Marlins going toe-to-toe with the Braves for third place in the NL East even though the starting rotation has been a mess, with Sandy Alcantara on track to become just the fourth qualified pitcher with an ERA over 7.00.
Heading into the season, I thought that if any team was going to challenge the Dodgers in the NL West, it would be the Diamondbacks. The offense has once again been one of the best in the majors, but the pitching issues have been painful.
After the aggressive move to sign Corbin Burnes, he went down with Tommy John surgery after 11 starts. Meanwhile, Zac Gallen, Eduardo Rodriguez and Brandon Pfaadt each have an ERA on the wrong side of 5.00. Rodriguez was better in June before a shellacking on July 4, while Gallen remains homer-prone, so it’s hard to tell if improvement is on the horizon. Their playoff odds are hovering just under 20%, so there’s a chance, but they need to get red-hot like they did last July and August.
It feels like it has been more soap opera than baseball season in Boston, with the Devers drama finally ending with the shocking trade with the Giants.
If you give added weight that this is the Red Sox, a team that should be operating with the big boys in both budget and aspirations and instead seemed to only want to dump Devers’ contract, then feel free to lower this grade a couple of notches, even if the Red Sox are close in the wild-card standings.
On the field, the heralded rookie trio of Kristian Campbell, Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer hasn’t exactly clicked, with Campbell returning to the minors after posting a .902 OPS in April. A big test will come out of the All-Star break, when they play the Cubs, Phillies, Dodgers, Twins and Astros in a tough 15-game stretch.
After last season’s surprise playoff appearance, it’s been a frustrating 2025 — although I’m not sure this result is necessarily a surprise.
There were concerns about the offense heading into the season and those concerns have proven correct. They were getting no production from their outfield, so they rushed Jac Caglianone to the majors to much hype, but he has struggled and might need a reset back in Triple-A. Even Bobby Witt Jr., as good as he has been (on pace for 7.5 WAR), has seen his OPS drop 140 points.
On the bright side, Kris Bubic emerged as an All-Star starter and Noah Cameron has filled in nicely for the injured Cole Ragans, so maybe they trade a starter for some offense.
Coming off a catastrophic 2024 season, nobody was expecting anything from the White Sox. Indeed, another 121-loss season loomed as a possibility. While they’re on pace to lose 100 again, they’ve at least played more competitive baseball thanks to their pitching.
Rookie starters Shane Smith and Sean Burke have shown promise, while rookie position players Kyle Teel, Edgar Quero and now Colson Montgomery are getting their initial taste of the majors.
There has been the mix of calamity: Luis Robert Jr. has been unproductive and is probably now untradable, and former No. 3 overall pick Andrew Vaughn hit .189 and was traded to the Brewers.
The Twins are one organization that might like a do-over of the past five seasons. It feels like they’ve had the most talent in the division, but all they’ve done is squeeze out one soft division title in 2023. Now, the Tigers have passed them in talent and other factors, such as payroll flexibility.
There’s still time for the Twins to turn things around in 2025, but outside of that wonderful 13-game winning streak, they haven’t played winning baseball.
Overall, it’s been yet another bad season, despite Paul Skenes‘ brilliance. Really, do we talk enough about him? Yes, we do talk about him, but he has a 1.95 ERA through his first 42 career starts. Incredible.
Here’s an amazing thing about baseball. The Pirates are not a good team, but they recently put together one of the best six-game stretches in history. That’s not stretching the description. First, they swept the Mets — a good team — by scores of 9-1, 9-2 and 12-1. Then they swept the Cardinals — a good team — with three shutouts, 7-0, 1-0 and 5-0. They became the first team since at least 1901 to score 43 runs or more and allow four runs or fewer in a six-game stretch. And then they promptly got shut out three games in a row, making them the first to win three straight shutouts and then lose three straight shutouts.
Eighteen of our 28 voters picked them to win the AL West before the season, but it’s looking more and more like the 2023 World Series might be a stone-cold fluke in the middle of a string of losing seasons. That year, nearly everyone in the lineup had a career year at the plate, and the pitching got hot at the right time.
This year’s Rangers, though, have struggled to score runs, and while some have pointed to the offensive environment at Globe Life Field, they’re near the bottom in road OPS as well. It’s been fun seeing Jacob deGrom back at a dominating level, and Nathan Eovaldi should have been an All-Star.
Put it this way: If the Rangers can somehow squeeze into the postseason, you don’t want to face the Rangers in a short series. Indeed, if any team looms as an October upset special, it might be the Rangers.
The Nationals received superlative first-half performances from James Wood and MacKenzie Gore, while CJ Abrams is on the way to his best season. But there remains a lack of overall organizational progress, which finally led to the firings on Sunday of longtime GM Mike Rizzo and longtime manager Dave Martinez. A 7-19 record in June sealed their fate, as the rotation has been bad and the bullpen arguably the worst in baseball.
Until the Nationals figure out how to improve their pitching — or, better yet, find an owner who wants to win — they will be stuck going nowhere.
That fell apart in a hurry. Sunday’s loss was Cleveland’s 10th in a row, a stretch that remarkably included five shutouts. Indeed, the Guardians have now been shut out 11 times; the franchise record in the post-dead-ball-era (since 1920) is 20 shutouts in 1968.
There’s nothing worse than watching a team that can’t score runs, so that tells you how exciting the Guardians have been. Last year, the Guardians hit exceptionally well with runners in scoring position, keeping afloat what was otherwise a mediocre offense. That hasn’t happened in 2025 (trading Josh Naylor didn’t help either). Throw in some predictable regression from the bullpen, and this season looks lost.
We can’t give this a complete failing grade due to the emergence of All-Star shortstop Jacob Wilson (the Athletics’ first All-Star starter since Josh Donaldson in 2014) and slugging first baseman Nick Kurtz, who have a chance to finish 1-2 in the Rookie of the Year voting. Plus, we have Denzel Clarke‘s circus catches in center field.
But otherwise? Ugh. The Sacramento gamble already looks like a disaster, three months into a three-year stay. The team is drawing well below Sutter Health Park’s 14,000-seat capacity, with many recent games drawing under 10,000 fans. Luis Severino bashed the small crowds and the lack of air-conditioning.
The A’s had a groundbreaking ceremony for their new park in Vegas, renting heavy construction equipment as background props. Maybe they should have spent that money on more pitching help.
Based on preseason expectations, the Braves have clearly been the biggest disappointment in the National League — fighting the Orioles for most disappointing overall.
What’s gone wrong? They haven’t scored runs, as the offense continues its remarkable fade from a record-setting performance just two seasons ago. The collapses of Michael Harris II and Ozzie Albies lead the way, with lack of production at shortstop and left field playing a big role as well. Closer Raisel Iglesias has struggled, and the team is 11-22 in one-run games. Spencer Strider hasn’t yet reached his pre-injury level and Reynaldo Lopez made just one start before going down.
The Braves haven’t missed the playoffs since 2017, but that run is clearly in jeopardy.
The Orioles have a similar record to the Braves but have played much worse, including losses of 24-2, 19-5, 15-3 and two separate 9-0 shutouts.
They will spend the trade deadline dealing away as many of their impending free agents as possible, and then do a lot of soul-searching heading into the offseason. After making the playoffs in 2023 and 2024, will this season just be a blip? While the pitching struggles aren’t necessarily a big surprise, what has happened to the offense? Are some of their young players prospects or suspects?
After two months of Cleveland Spiders-level baseball, it would be easy to make fun of the Rockies. Especially since they recently announced Walker Monfort — son of the owner — was promoted to executive VP and will replace outgoing president and COO Greg Feasel.
On the other hand, the Rockies are doing something right: They just drew 121,000 for a three-game series against the White Sox.
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Jesse Rogers
CHICAGO — Former White Sox lefty Mark Buehrle was forever immortalized inside Rate Field as the team unveiled a statue in his honor Friday.
Buehrle, 46, played 16 years in the majors, including the first 12 with the White Sox, who he helped win a World Series in 2005. He won 214 games and pitched 200 innings or more in 14 consecutive seasons from 2001 to 2014.
“I can’t put it into words,” Buehrle said after the unveiling. “You don’t play the game for any of this. You never think of number retirements or statues. I can’t even wrap my head around it. It doesn’t make sense.”
The statue is an action shot of him throwing a pitch.
His wife and kids were in attendance and helped pull off the cover to unveil the statue while his 2005 teammates looked on. The event kicked off a weekend reunion for the World Series team which went 11-1 in the postseason, beating the Houston Astros in four games to take home the title.
Buehrle was a five-time All-Star and four-time Gold Glove winner, finishing fifth in Cy Young voting in 2005.
“Well-deserved,” former right fielder Jermaine Dye said of the statue. “Great teammate. Great leader. Definitely someone you want on a ballclub to lead a pitching staff.”
The White Sox rotation — led by Buehrle — threw four complete games in the ALCS against the Boston Red Sox in 2005, missing a fifth complete game by two-thirds of an inning. It’s an unheard of accomplishment in today’s game since starters infrequently go the distance.
Besides being an innings-eater on the mound, Buehrle was a fast worker — a favorite trait of his catcher, A.J Pierzynski. And he wasn’t someone who threw a lot of different pitches. He caught it and threw it without much input from behind the plate.
“He was fast,” Pierzynski said. “We had Jermaine Dye calling pitches from right field some games. We did come crazy things you wouldn’t recommend to people to do nowadays.”
Buehrle is a notoriously low-key guy who hates the spotlight but even he was moved by the team’s decision to honor him with a statue, which joins former slugger Harold Baines in the right-field concourse.
“I joked with him when I saw him,” Dye said. “I told him ‘Man it takes you getting a statue to get you out of the house.'”
Buehrle added: “I was literally nervous as can be today. This is not my comfort zone but by no means am I taking it lightly. This is incredible.”
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