Buck Showalter knows the dynamics of the Mets’ clubhouse as well as anyone, and the club’s former manager gave his point of view on the relationship between Francisco Lindor and Jeff McNeil in a recent appearance on Foul Territory.
According to Showalter, who took over as Mets manager after the 2021 season and held the position until the end of the 2023 campaign, there were never any issues between the two while he was there, but he did note that Lindor and McNeil have their own, distinct personalities.
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“Jeff and Francisco are different,” Showalter said. “Jeff’s a Long Beach State Dirtbag, loves everything about the game, thinks the world is against him sometimes with line drives at people. Lindor is a very stylish, worldly guy, but it works. I called them together the first day that I got there, and I had heard a lot of stuff, and we didn’t have a problem. Jeff, I think, led the whole globe in hitting. Nobody on the globe hit for a higher batting average than Jeff McNeil.
“I think If you actually knew everything that went on behind the scenes with relationships when you’re thrown together for eight months, seven months. I mean, heck, I’ve been married for 43 years and there’s not a day goes by that I don’t have to just shut up. But that’s okay. That’s not why they had a tough year. Their pitching wasn’t very good.”
Mike Puma of the New York Post recently reported that Lindor and McNeil had a “heated confrontation” this past season after a defensive lap during a June 20 game in Philadelphia.
During the 2021 season, Lindor’s first year in Queens, he and McNeil reportedly also got into a scuffle in the tunnel to the clubhouse, with the New York Post reporting that Lindor grabbed McNeil by the throat during the altercation.
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“It was funny. I told him I was like ‘I’ve never seen a New York rat’ so we went down sprinting,” Lindor said that night. “I wanted to go see a New York rat, and [McNeil] got mad at me, and was like, ‘It’s not a rat, it’s a raccoon.’ And I’m like, ‘Hell no, man! It’s a damn rat. It’s a New York rat, man.’ It was crazy. We were going back and forth debating if it was a rat or a raccoon. Crazy man, it was insane.”
With McNeil entering the final year of his contract, coupled with the recent acquisition of second baseman Marcus Semien, the Mets have reportedly been fielding trade offers on the veteran.
