PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — New York Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor will undergo surgery on his left hamate Wednesday and will miss at least six weeks, manager Carlos Mendoza said.
Mendoza and president of baseball operations David Stearns said Lindor has dealt with pain in the hamate, which is on the lower outside edge of the hand, in the past, but he played through the discomfort before it dissipated. This time, however, the team grew concerned when Lindor recently communicated pain so early in the year, prompting a visit with a specialist to evaluate the injury Wednesday.
Like Stearns on Tuesday, Mendoza echoed that he is “optimistic” that Lindor will be ready for Opening Day. He said Lindor will resume running and throwing after his stitches are removed after 10 days.
The Mets start the season against the Pittsburgh Pirates on March 26 — six weeks and one day from Wednesday.
“Knowing Lindor,” Mendoza said, “I’m not going to bet against him.”
The Mets’ optimism for Lindor’s return for Opening Day differs from the two other high-profile hamate cases that surfaced in Major League Baseball on Wednesday, when Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder Corbin Carroll and Baltimore Orioles second baseman Jackson Holliday were ruled out for the start of the season with hamate fractures.
Carroll was also scheduled to undergo surgery Wednesday; Holliday is scheduled to have the procedure Thursday.
Last March, Mets catcher Francisco Alvarez fractured his left hamate bone after taking a swing during a live at-bat in spring training. He didn’t make his season debut until April 25, nearly seven weeks after suffering the injury, and hit one home run in his first 109 plate appearances. Alvarez, however, had torn a ligament in his left thumb a year earlier.
Even if Lindor returns Opening Day — a best-case scenario that would require an ideal recovery — he could take longer to regain his form at the plate. Hitters who have undergone the surgery often said their typical power took months, not weeks, to resurface.
“Every player is different, but knowing the person, knowing the player, pretty comfortable saying that he’s going to be ready to go,” Mendoza said.
Lindor, 32, has not landed on the injured list since 2021 despite dealing with various ailments in recent years. In 2024, he missed several games over the final two weeks of the season with a back injury. Last season, he played through a broken right pinky toe and led the majors with 732 plate appearances, slashing .267/.346/.466 with 31 home runs and 31 steals.
He has played in at least 160 games in three of the past four seasons. The only year he didn’t reach the mark was in 2024 when he played in 152 games and finished second in National League MVP voting. He underwent an elbow debridement in October but was slated for full participation in spring training until the hamate injury arose.
“I think the only time he feels 100% is day one of spring training since I’ve been here,” Mendoza said.
The Mets don’t have an obvious backup shortstop after sending Luisangel Acuna to the Chicago White Sox as part of their trade for Luis Robert Jr. last month.
Besides Lindor, Bo Bichette is the most experienced shortstop in Mets camp after he spent seven seasons playing the position for the Toronto Blue Jays. New York, however, signed Bichette to a three-year $126 million deal to play third base — a position he’s never played as a professional — and the club is prioritizing his transition.
“As of right now, that’s not on the table,” Mendoza said. “But, again, this is a guy that’s played shortstop. But we got to get to that point. That transition is not going to be that hard. So, right now, we have to make sure we get him comfortable at third base and that’s where he’s going to be getting his work defensively.”
Instead, Mendoza named Ronny Mauricio, Vidal Bruján, Jackson Cluff, and Grae Kessinger as options to play shortstop in Grapefruit League games.
Mauricio and Bruján are on the 40-man roster; Cluff and Kessinger are non-roster invites. Of the four, Bruján’s 36 major league starts at shortstop leads the group. Mauricio came up in the Mets’ farm system as shortstop, but he sustained a significant knee injury that forced him to miss the entire 2024 season and, with Lindor’s constant presence in the lineup, has accumulated just 24 innings there in his brief major league career.
