Doesn't it make sense to table this conversation, let Lindor go rake over the final two months of the year, look like Francisco Lindor, and then Steve Cohen, Lindor, can kind of have that combo in the offseason and say, hey, are we sticking around long-term or not? I feel like now is just a terrible, terrible time for the Mets to go and trade him.

I don't know what you would be getting in a deal for Francisco Lindor right now.

I still think of him as an extremely valuable player as well.

But why I say that at the beginning of the conversation or to start the answer is because the guy is owed about $160 million over the next few seasons.

That's a lot of money.

It's a lot of money to change hands in the middle of season two, or during a season at least.

We're talking about getting a deal done within a week and a half or so before the trade deadline when the Mets, by the way, have a bunch of other things they need to accomplish in this next week and a half outside of that huge thing of Francisco Lindor that could occupy space in their mind.

Like, is there a sense like Steve publicly has been very, very supportive of David Stearns? But do you think he's questioning some of that at the

"Should the Mets look to trade Francisco Lindor to obtain a quality starting pitcher?"

Well, first off, uh, I think Steve Cohen publicly said like, "Hey, I pretty much expect Juan Soto and Francisco Lindor to be part of this team going forward." So there's that.

Now, also Francisco Lindor has what they call in baseball a 10 and five, right? So he has the, he has the, uh, power to veto any trade too, so he-- there, there's that aspect of it.

Whether or not they end up trading Francisco Lindor, I don't know.

But I have not heard anything to suggest that they are going to do that right now because it's also, frankly even if they wanted to, very, very hard to do that considering his contract, right? Like this guy is not only under contract for a long time, it's at a pretty high number and there are only a few teams in baseball who would sign someone to that, to those figures, let alone trade for him.

Uh, if this was somebody who was even younger in the free agent market in the off season, there would only be a couple of suitors realistically speaking because that's just how it has been in baseball.

So to, to find a trade partner for somebody like that, it goes beyond like, "Hey, this team needs a shortstop.

Yeah

See, that's-- you're a smart guy, that's why.

[laughs] And I got lucky maybe with a good answer.

[laughs] A lot of times you ask questions that you think are good, and it's like, "Okay, yeah, that was obvious." But, um, I, I did not frankly expect him to be that blunt about his an- uh, be that honest, I guess, uh, or candid, I guess is a better word, with his answer there.

Um, yeah, it, it is the type of answer that makes you want to follow that storyline the rest of the season and see like, okay, what kind of players do they take on before the trade deadline if they find themselves somehow in the mix of adding? Um, and obviously, uh, to kind of get to the juncture of like why that was the question, like I just feel like they took on too much risk.

Uh, and it's easy to say in hindsight, but I was saying that even during the off-season, because the one thing that the last group that they moved on from, uh, Alonso, uh, Nimmo, those types of guys, the one thing that you could say about those two guys in particular was that they were gonna play every day.

Like availability was not a question with those guys.

And so then you move on to different types of players who have the upside and have some good things, but, uh, they just have a questionable injury history.

How, how much of the problem do you think the manager has been in this 40, 41 game start that they've gotten off to?

Where are you at with the reporting on Carlos Mendoza and his job status?

So let me rewind a little bit to that column that you alluded to, because that was done in the LA trip, which, which is now a couple of weeks we're removed from that.

And like you said, a lot has happened.

A lot of losing has happened since then, and I could not predict that to be the case.

What I wrote then was, "I don't think his job is at stake right now," and frankly, that's probably the right way to go about it based on the job that he's done, what his expectations are, and really what the expectations are of a modern-day manager, and what makes one good, what makes one not so good at that particular job.

And so for me, at that point in time, the Mets season had not yet really gone off the rails to a 12-game losing streak or even getting swept by the Colorado Rockies afterward, but you could kind of feel it.

It was one of those things where it was on the radio, it was on X, it was on everywhere you look.

Do you think that it has gotten better from where it was a year ago to 2026 locker room in the Mets clubhouse?

(laughs)

... because David Stern's sort of telegraphed what his intentions were at the end of the season, and it was a very disappointing season for the Mets.

He said that he was open to changing up the Mets' core group of players when he was asked about that question.

He reiterated multiple times the need to get better defensively for a team that was not good on defense.

Just from covering him over the years, especially, uh, while he has taken over for the Mets with a larger payroll, a larger budget, he and his front office, they act very disciplined, I would say, uh, as opposed to other regimes for the Mets recently under Steve Cohen.

Like, they act very, very disciplined when it comes to not going over what they consider to be the market asking price for a certain player.

I, I think that they're pretty cognizant of not being used.

(laughs)

(laughs)

Um, the only thing I will say about Canning, though, is that they've also taken him off a little bit of that four-seam fastball, which wasn't that good of a pitch.

So as, as we've seen the slider increase, the four-seam has decreased a little bit.

And I think he's using it just better, for lack of a better way to put that.

Like, he's a lot smarter with it.

I think he's challenging guys with it when they're not expecting it.

I think he's learned to pitch a little bit backward as well, where, you know, instead of going fastball, fastball, he's kind of setting up guys for the fastball with his off-speed stuff original- like, in the beginning of an at-bat, so that's kinda different.

Yeah.