Mr. Smile apparently wasn’t smiling an excessive amount of about one among his teammates final season.
New York Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor had a “heated confrontation” with teammate Jeff McNeil final June, Mike Puma of the New York Post reported on Friday. Puma writes that Lindor started verbally attacking McNeil on June 20 over a defensive lapse that McNeil had throughout that day’s recreation in opposition to the Philadelphia Phillies. The confrontation, which was solely verbal and by no means received bodily, got here within the midst of a seven-game shedding streak by the Mets on the time.
Puma additionally stories that the flashy Lindor clashed personalities through the yr with the business-like Juan Soto through the season as properly.
Curiously sufficient, the five-time All-Star Lindor additionally had a confrontation with McNeil within the dugout throughout a recreation within the 2021 MLB season. That confrontation did flip bodily, and Lindor later offered an extremely unconvincing excuse for the incident.
In the meantime, the incident final June underscored the Mets’ struggles to get on the identical web page with each other through the 2025 marketing campaign. Regardless of having a mammoth $342 million payroll, the Mets fully collapsed within the ultimate weeks of the season and missed the playoffs altogether.
Now there are rumors that the Mets might make some huge modifications this offseason, including a potential trade of McNeil. After one other obvious confrontation between the veteran utilityman and the four-time Silver Slugger Award winner Lindor, it’s clear that one thing just isn’t fairly working proper now in that clubhouse.
