Hope springs eternal every year when the Super Bowl confetti drops. Diehards like you and me cannot wait to get our hands on the MLB.tv subscription. It may be the only subscription bill that we forget about that is actually exciting. But on Tuesday Morning, the New York Mets’ world had a bomb shell dropped in their Spring Training facility in Port St. Lucie. Quazi, captain of the New York Mets, Shortstop Francisco Lindor is injured with a hamate bone injury in his left hand. That is better news than his right hand, since he does not throw with this hand, but this injury definitely demonstrates his frustration when it comes to batting. Since Lindor is a switch-hitter, it will be hard to say how it will affect him most. Sometimes, the way that hitters swing or the handedness of the batter can indicate a shorter recovery.
Lindor is a notoriously slow starter when it comes to the start of the season anyway, so this is surely going to set his season back even further when it comes to reaching his full potential. Lindor has been an absolute gem since Steve Cohen traded for him from the then-Cleveland Indians. He has put up gaudy numbers, reaching the 30 home run threshold each of the last three years, and even making his first all-star team for the Mets last season. (He has played very well in his time in New York, but his slow starts are the reason as to why he only made his first all-star team with the Mets in 2025.) He’s posted an above five WAR (Wins Above Replacement in every season for New York, and even an MVP-2 in 2024, behind Shohei Ohtani.
Impact on Mets
The Mets need Lindor this season after letting go of Pete Alonso; his power is going to be essential to the Mets’ success. The 2026 Mets’ offseason has long been chronicled, especially throughout the New York area, but the reality is that they have had a really good offseason. David Stearns adding players like Bo Bichette, Jorge Polanco, Marcus Semien, and Luis Robert Jr. could turn out to be a huge win for the team. The focus has been on defense more than anything, and I definitely feel that this will be improved, but the offense, besides Bo Bichette, has some uncertainty to it. I am not so sure that this Mets team will have the reliability it had in players like Brandon Nimmo (who was traded to the Texas Rangers for Marcus Semien) and Pete Alonso, who left for the Baltimore Orioles in free agency. Now, the timeline the Mets have given is 6 weeks, which should get him back in time for the first week or two of the season, but he will miss all of Spring Training, which, for a slow starter like him, could push the start of Peak Lindor to June or July. The Mets will take an opposite version of last year as long as they can make the playoffs, but let’s take a look at some star players who had a comparable injury in recent years.
Comparable Injuries
I am not a doctor, but I will try to give you as much information as possible on this injury to try to project Lindor’s timeline. The standard time missed for the Hamate bone injury is 6 to 8 weeks following surgery. This injury has happened to plenty of A-tier stars within the last 15 years.
First is Giancarlo Stanton in 2015 with the Miami Marlins. Stanton is a hitter who relies on his power to get him to his top-tier potential. He missed three months for this injury. Although he took much longer to recover, he returned to full form following the injury. He did play the outfield during this time as well.
Jose Ramirez also had this injury in 2019. The third baseman suffered the injury in Late August, and he returned exactly a month later. The switch-hitter did not seem to be bothered too much by the injury, as only a month later, he returned to full form.
Mike Trout has had many injuries in the latter half of his career. No one wants to see such an amazing player’s career peter out this way. In 2023, Trout had received successful surgery and missed seven weeks, totaling 38 games before he came back, but his injury proved to be more severe than they had thought. The Angels, who had attempted the playoffs in Shohei Ohtani’s last season with the Angels, quickly collapsed at the trade deadline. Trout Experienced pain after going 1-4 in his return and landed on the 60-Day IL for the remainder of the season.
Atlanta Braves second baseman Ozzie Albies also experienced this injury toward the end of his 2024 season. He experienced the injury on September 22 of that season, so it effectively ended his season if not for a potential World Series run, which did not happen.
There have been a few other examples of this injury as well over the past decade, but overall, the timelines vary greatly. It is also hard to tell because of the fact that none of these injuries happened at the beginning of the season, especially before Spring training started. A safe timeline to bet on would be that he returns around April 15. Again, he will be experiencing Spring Training within the MLB season, so I would not expect him to return offensively to his full form until June. For the Mets’ sake, hopefully, they can survive the early part of the season without him.
