ATLANTA — Francisco Lindor‘s long national nightmare might finally be over soon. The Mets‘ team leader is currently the leading National League vote-getter at shortstop in All-Star voting.
Monday night, MLB released the first voting update for the 2025 All-Star Game, which will be held at Truist Park in Atlanta on July 15. The Mets were well-represented, with Lindor, Pete Alonso and Juan Soto all receiving enough votes to put them in the top-5 at their respective positions. There were a few surprises as well, with catcher Francisco Alvarez opening up in third place, infielder/outfielder Jeff McNeil garnering the fourth-most votes at second base, and Starling Marte currently holding the fifth-most at DH.
Lindor earning more votes than the Dodgers’ Mookie Betts shouldn’t be surprising, but somehow the shortstop has been snubbed for the All-Star game every year since he’s been with the Mets. Slow starts to his season doomed him from 2021-2024, but in each of those years, he had more than turned it around by about mid-June, plenty of time for fans to vote him into the Midsummer Classic, and plenty of time for the league to take notice as well.
“It’s crazy that after everything that he’s done as a player here in this league that he hasn’t made an All-Star as a Met,” manager Carlos Mendoza said Tuesday at Truist Park. “Watching how the voting is going and seeing that he’s leading, I’m proud of him…
“But he’s got to keep going.”
Lindor has compiled a 3.0 fWAR this season, tied for the 12th-best in baseball. In previous years, the shortstop has been in the top-10 in both fWAR and bWAR and still hasn’t made it into the All-Star game. Last year, he finished second behind Shohei Ohtani in NL MVP voting, and while yes, that came well after the All-Star break, Lindor was still an elite player throughout much of the first half of the 2024 season.
The last time Lindor made an All-Star team, it was in 2019 as a member of the Cleveland Guardians. His omission has confounded the Mets and many others around baseball. Typically, when elite players go from a smaller market to a big one, they get more attention, not less.
But if 2025 is the year Lindor finally gets back to the All-Star Game, so be it.
“It’s an honor,” Mendoza said. “We are all proud of him, but again, he’s got to finish the job.”
TRAINER’S ROOM
Brett Baty was out of the lineup Tuesday with groin soreness. The second/third baseman left Sunday’s game with groin tightness, but the Mets don’t believe the injury to be serious. Baty traveled to Atlanta with the Mets and participated in baseball activities Tuesday, trying to see how much he could handle before the team made a determination about whether or not he would be available off the bench against the Braves.
Third baseman Mark Vientos (hamstring strain) started a minor league rehab assignment Tuesday night with Triple-A Syracuse, getting into the lineup as a DH. He’ll be off Wednesday, then play in the field Friday, working up to playing back-to-back games at third base. Position players have 20 days to complete minor league rehab assignments, but the Mets are hopeful Vientos will return before his clock runs out.
Left-hander Sean Manaea will move from Low-A Brooklyn to Triple-A Syracuse for his next rehab start Friday. Right-hander Frankie Montas will make what the Mets hope to be his final rehab start Wednesday with Syracuse.
ON THE FARM
Two Mets prospects won player of the week awards in their respective leagues. Infielder/outfielder Jett Williams, the club’s top overall prospect, was named the Double-A Eastern League Player of the Week after hitting .385 with a 1.428 OPS with two home runs, eight RBI, three triples, three doubles, four walks and a stolen base in six games against Richmond.
Right-hander Brendan Girton, of High-A Brooklyn, was named the South Atlantic League’s Pitcher of the Week with five perfect innings and three strikeouts.
Low-A St. Lucie secured a playoff spot by clinching the Florida State League East Division on Sunday night.
