{"id":217034,"date":"2021-04-02T01:24:05","date_gmt":"2021-04-01T22:24:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/francisco-lindor-isnt-afraid-of-341-million-mets-spotlight\/"},"modified":"2021-04-02T01:24:05","modified_gmt":"2021-04-01T22:24:05","slug":"francisco-lindor-isnt-afraid-of-341-million-mets-spotlight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/francisco-lindor-isnt-afraid-of-341-million-mets-spotlight\/","title":{"rendered":"#Francisco Lindor isn’t afraid of $341 million Mets spotlight"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Francisco Lindor isn’t afraid of $341 million Mets spotlight<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 You can see why his teammates, to a man, want to play with Francisco Lindor, want to champion him \u2014 and, in the case of Pete Alonso, want to act as something of a supplementary agent extracting a few extra piles of Steve Cohen\u2019s cash.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never seen anything like it,\u201d Mets manager Luis Rojas. \u201cI\u2019ve been around a lot of leaders in my career. But he\u2019s just different.\u201d<\/p>\n

That has been app<\/a>arent from the start. Mets players \u2014 all Mets players, stars and scrubs, sluggers and slingers \u2014 were drawn to him. So were the coaches. So was the owner, and the team president, who acquired him and hoped he would become the face of the franchise for a decade.<\/p>\n

Now, part of that is the moth-to-a-flame vibe that terrific players project. That part isn\u2019t unique. Stars attract attention.<\/p>\n

Thursday afternoon, we were given a brief glimpse of what the Mets see when they see Lindor, who will be a franchise centerpiece for the next 11 years, a day after Lindor signed on for 10 years and $341 million, a few hours after the Mets\u2019 season opener was postponed thanks to COVID issues affecting the Nationals.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s just so real,\u201d is the way Alonso described Lindor a few weeks go. \u201cThere isn\u2019t any pretense to him. At all.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was apparent as Lindor made his way through his first interrogation as a generationally rich shortstop. Even in these days, as we have become inured and jaded to the price tag of elite professional athletes, those athletes often try to distance their decision from the number of zeroes on the pay stub. They make signing seem like a sacrament.<\/p>\n

\"Mets\"
Francisco Lindor signed a $341 million contract extension with the Mets.<\/figcaption>
AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now, Lindor had plenty of rah-rah to his message \u2014 \u201cIt\u2019s an honor to wear the blue and orange,\u201d he said, before thanking Cohen and his wife, Alex, for \u201cbelieving in me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHere we go, baby!\u201d he said through his thousand-kilowatt smile.<\/p>\n

But he was also more than willing to discuss the thousand-pound elephant that will lurk in every room he walks into for the foreseeable future. He wanted to get paid. It was no coincidence that he signed for $1 million more than Fernando Tatis Jr., and he made no pretense that there was.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to yell and scream as loud as I could,\u201d Lindor said when his agent, David Meter, called him late Wednesday night to tell him the deal was done. \u201cBut I was in a hotel room. I couldn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was more: Lindor recognized the contract he signed was, in many ways, another link in a chain that has connected the brotherhood of baseball players ever since the owners\u2019 gift of the reserve clause was eliminated 45 years ago.<\/p>\n