HARBOR ST. LUCIE – Francisco Lindor is still weeks away from starting full practice, but that doesn’t mean he will be absent from the Mets scene during spring training.
After undergoing surgery last week for a broken hamate bone in his left hand, the All-Star shortstop reaffirmed his hopes of returning in time for Opening Day, but not before connecting with the team’s new cast.
That meant coming to Clover Park on Sunday, a day before the team’s first full-squad practice.
“We have a lot of new faces that I want to get to know and I wanted to interact with them,” Lindor said. “Just being out there with the boys… it sucks that I can’t do everything they do.”
Lindor will have to recover for six weeks from the operation, which was performed on Wednesday.
He didn’t shy away from the idea that he will play on Opening Day.
“I’m very optimistic,” Lindor said. “My goal is to be there. I trust the Mets staff and feel like they’ve been around it a lot and they’re really good.”
Lindor said he had suffered from discomfort in the hand “over the years” and that after a full workout on Feb. 6, he felt like something was wrong, which led to the decision to have surgery.
Previously, Lindor was dropped from the World Baseball Classic – he was set to captain Puerto Rico – after the event’s insurer denied him coverage. Lindor said that decision stemmed from his offseason surgery to clean out his elbow.
“It definitely surprised me,” Lindor said of the denial of insurance coverage. ‘I felt like I was ready… They hadn’t seen me [play] the entire offseason and I had surgery at the end of the season [season].”
Even an intervention from Bad Bunny could not help: the Puerto Rican rapper offered to take out an insurance policy for the short stop, but the WBC did not allow this, according to Lindor.
“We appreciate how much [Bad Bunny] He cares about Puerto Rico,” Lindor said. “He wanted Puerto Rico to be as strong as possible, but that didn’t work out.”
Lindor said the Mets’ offseason overhaul — led by president of baseball operations David Stearns — was understandable given the disappointing way last season ended, with the team missing the playoffs. The new cast includes Freddy Peralta, Devin Williams, Bo Bichette, Jorge Polanco, Marcus Semien and Luis Robert Jr., with Pete Alonso, Brandon Nimmo, Jeff McNeil and Edwin Díaz among the deceased.
“The year didn’t end the way we all wanted it to and it’s a business and you feel like not every year is going to look the same,” Lindor said. “Stearns is one of the best and this group is great, so it was interesting to see how they went about it.
“The whole offseason it seemed to be quiet, then suddenly it wasn’t quiet anymore and then it got quiet again,” Lindor said. “They did a really good job with the way they did it. I’m looking forward to this year.”
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