Andres Chavez
If you’ve spent any time around a baseball diamond, you know the hamate bone is a tiny, useless piece of anatomy right until the second it ruins a season. Francisco Lindor going under the knife in mid-February felt like a gut punch to a Mets fan base that is already conditioned to wait for the other shoe to drop.
We are talking about a guy who hasn’t just been good; he’s been the heartbeat of Queens, churning out at least 5.5 fWAR like clockwork for four straight years, peaking at 7.7 in 2024. Losing that production for any stretch of time is a disaster, but the updates coming out of camp suggest Lindor is built differently than the rest of us.
The Speed of the Recovery
Most guys take their time with hand surgery because, frankly, gripping a piece of ash and swinging it at 98 miles per hour hurts like hell. Lindor is apparently skipping the “waking up” phase of his rehab and sprinting straight toward the finish line.
He had that bulky wrap off in ten days and the stitches out just a few days after that. Now, Jon Heyman is reporting that the man is already playing catch and eyeing batting practice like a shark circling a chum bucket. It’s the kind of recovery timeline that makes you wonder if he’s actually human or if the Mets’ medical staff found some experimental super-soldier serum in the back of the supply closet.
The Opening Day Illusion
March 26 is the date circled in red on everyone’s calendar, and Lindor seems hell-bent on being at shortstop when the Pirates roll into town. Being “ready” for Opening Day and being “Lindor” are two very different things, though.
We’ve seen this movie before with power hitters who have this specific procedure. The hamate bone surgery is notorious for sapping a hitter’s pop for weeks, if not months, after they return to the lineup. The grip strength just isn’t there, and that flick of the wrists that turns a fly ball into a home run suddenly feels like it’s moving through molasses.
Managing the Early Expectations
The Mets are going to get a version of Lindor that might look a little rusty, and everyone needs to be okay with that. He probably won’t have more than a handful of spring training at-bats under his belt by the time the games actually matter.
You can’t simulate live pitching in a cage, and you certainly can’t simulate the torque of a max-effort swing until you’re staring down a big-league closer. He’ll still be an elite defender and a wizard on the basepaths because those things don’t require a perfectly healed palm. The power, however, might stay in the dugout until May.
The Long Game in Queens
The reality is that a 70 percent version of Francisco Lindor is still better than almost any other shortstop on the planet. His presence in the clubhouse and his ability to vacuum up everything hit to his left makes him indispensable even when he’s hitting singles instead of doubles.
The Mets need him for 150 games, not just the first three in March. If he struggles through the first two weeks of the season, don’t scream about the contract or the surgery. Just wait for the strength to return, because once it does, the best shortstop in the National League will be right back where he belongs.
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