Lindor, Crown Jewel of Cohen Era, Leads Mets on MLB’s Wild Last Day

In one of his first major moves after purchasing the New York Mets in late 2020, Steve Cohen’s new baseball operations staff obtained shortstop Francisco Lindor along with pitcher Carlos Carrasco in a trade with Cleveland for four players.

Cohen subsequently signed Lindor to a 10-year, $341 million contract that turned controversial to Mets fans who booed him incessantly at Citi Field as he struggled through his first New York season when he hit .230 with 20 homers and 63 RBIs.

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Well, no one is complaining about that mega-deal now. Lindor’s two-run homer in the top of ninth Monday at Atlanta’s Truist Park put the Mets in the playoffs with an 8-7 win over the Braves in the first game of a makeup doubleheader.

He sat out the second game as the Braves clinched the other NL Wild Card spot with a 3-0 win. The Arizona Diamondbacks were eliminated. All three teams ended at 89-73, but the D-backs lost the tiebreakers.

The NL Wild Card matchups are now set: the Mets play the Brewers at Milwaukee, and the Braves heading to San Diego to play the Padres. Both best-of-three series open Tuesday.

The only chance for the D-backs was for one team to sweep the makeup doubleheader created by last week’s twin postponement when Hurricane Helene assaulted the Atlanta area. The D-backs gathered together in their clubhouse at Chase Field to watch the night cap, but as the game slipped away at the end the mood became somber.

“This really hurts,” D-backs manager Torey Lovullo said. “This is a very difficult situation we’re all trying to navigate through. You can’t really predict how a season is going to end and then you have to wait around all day just to find out.”

The Mets came from behind twice in the penultimate game of the regular season, from deficits of 3-0, and ultimately 7-6 with one out and no one on in the top of ninth. Starling Marte singled and Lindor followed with his 33rd homer of the season.

Closer Edwin Diaz, who gave up the lead in the eight, shut the Braves down in the ninth to nail down the win and playoff berth. Cohen signed Diaz to a five-year, $102 million contract in 2022—a record amount at the time for a relief pitcher.

“I’m going back out no matter what,” Diaz told Mets manager Carlos Mendoza. “I don’t care what you say, I’m going back out.”

The second game created the rare situation in which the Braves had everything to play for and the Mets had nothing except to relax and get ready for the playoffs. The D-backs wondered if the Mets had given it a solid effort.

“I don’t think I’ve experienced anything like that,” Lovullo said. “I don’t think anybody else has, either.”

Cohen paid $2.4 billion for the Mets—a team that’s value has since risen—and has given players a pretty penny. Even after he dumped veteran pitchers Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander at the 2023 trade deadline, his player payroll for this season was a Major League Baseball-leading $350.3 billion. Lindor is making $34.1 million, by far the top salary on the team.

Cohen ate $56 million of that payroll this year paying Scherzer and Verlander to pitch elsewhere. Both had underwhelming, injury prone seasons for Texas and Houston, respectively.

Lindor capped what has been his best overall Mets season slashing at .272/.344/.496 with a 137 OPS+, and 91 RBIs to go with the 33 homers. At 30, he has seven seasons to go on that contract.

It should be noted that the general manager who made that Lindor deal, Billy Eppler, is long gone. So is manager Buck Showalter.

First-year GM David Sterns and Mendoza benefitted from the bygone regime.

In any event, Tuesday’s best-of-three Wild Card rounds in both leagues are finally all set. In the American League, it’s Detroit at Houston and Kansas City at Baltimore.

The four leading division winners will sit until the League Division Series begin Saturday: the New York Yankees and Cleveland Indians in the AL; the Los Angeles Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies in the NL.

The Yankees, with 94 wins, led the AL. The Dodgers, at 98 wins, would have home field advantage as far as they go in the playoffs.

With Texas already having been eliminated, this is the first time since 2006 the two teams that played in the previous World Series didn’t make the playoffs the next season. The D-backs lost to the Rangers in five games last fall.

In 2006, the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Tigers in five games. Neither made the playoffs in 2007.

The D-backs lost five of their last seven and really have only themselves to blame. They blew an 8-0 lead in Milwaukee on Sept. 22 and lost, 10-9. While a team can point to many such games during the course of a 162-game season, that proved to be the nexus of their final week collapse.

“We’re frustrated because I think we controlled our destiny for a little while there and we let it slip through our fingers,” D-backs starter Merrill Kelly said. “A lot of games we just let go. That one in Milwaukee comes to mind. It sucks to sit here today knowing that if we had squeezed out just one more win we wouldn’t be in this position.”

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