Best of the Mets on WFAN: The Lindor trade debate will not go away

**Boomer Esiason** (0:00)
I wonder if he would go to Steve Cohen and say, look man, this ain't working, this is not working. And there are some guys that I'd like to keep here, and of course, those are going to be Ben and Ewing, and of course, Christian Scott and Nolan McClain, and you're gonna keep Juan Soto. And probably Alvarez, I would think, even though they gave Torrens a two-year contract, which is trends, which is a good idea, I think everybody else has gotta be available, everybody, I mean, and that includes Francisco Lindor, because while he is a, at one point in time, a really, really good player and a very streaky player, I just don't know if he is happy, and I've been saying this now for over a month, and if a guy is not happy and he has a no trade clause, you gotta try to move him somewhere where, you know, he can be happy and he can find his game and maybe go on to win a World Series somewhere else, which would, you know, I'd hate to see that, but I also understand that the Mets have got to do something.

**Chris McMonigle** (1:03)
Yeah, the tough thing about Lindor is if you're gonna give up any sort of prospect and the Mets are gonna get anything back for, you know, because Steve Cohen said that the farm system was regressing. So if it's regressing, you're gonna want to replenish it. If you're gonna get anything back in a trade that is worth it to replenish this farm system that's regressing, you're gonna have to pay a significant amount of money in that contract for what has already been a financial disaster for the Mets. So is Steve Cohen going into this potential lockout thinking, now I'm just gonna be eating salary with guys like Francisco Lindor just to grab prospects that we have no idea are gonna pan out and then we'll watch Francisco Lindor go and go on some sort of tear for another team. I think the best option in that scenario is probably to hang on to them.

**Boomer Esiason** (1:49)
You know, you gotta be ruthless when you're a general manager, gotta be ruthless when you're an owner. You know, these are assets, the players are assets. I know they're human beings, but they also have to fit together. They also have to like each other. They also have to play off of each other, much like the Knicks did this year. And if you're sitting there and you're trying to figure out, does this team have a potential to become a winning team next year? Like, can they turn it around? Is this group of men in this dugout and in this locker room, are they all pulling in the same direction? Do they actually really like each other? Are they selfless and unselfish? And all of the things that we saw from the Knicks, I mean, all the things that we saw from the Giants the two years that they won the Super Bowl, when you talk about teams that are winning teams, you see that, and you also see health. You see a lot of healthy players, you see guys playing games they're supposed to be playing in.
And unfortunately, both the Yankees and the Mets have gone through these injury bugs with their best players.
And that's the other part of this. That, you know, all right, so you have one of the richest, yeah, the richest single owner in baseball. Now, you don't have a consortium like the Dodgers do.

**Chris McMonigle** (3:04)
Well, they're under investigation.

**Boomer Esiason** (3:06)
Yeah, they are under investigation. They should be, you know.

**Chris McMonigle** (3:09)
Consortium.

**Boomer Esiason** (3:09)
Yeah.
But what I'm saying is that the Mets team and David Stearns have got to look at this and say to themselves, like, we're not winning with this current group of players the way that we are set up right now. And, you know, I would think that Bo Bichette would opt in and stay here and he could comfortably play shortstop if you wanted to move Francisco Lindor. And maybe you might have to eat some contract, which is why you have a rich owner. So you can eat some contract so you can get back maybe one or two top 10 prospects from whoever you're trading him to.
Yeah. And again, I don't know. He's not asking for a trade. So this is the interesting thing. I don't know if you follow it as much as I do. But you know, in hockey, a lot of these players have no move and no trade clauses, which hamstrings the team as to who they can send the player to. And if a player is unhappy, let's say Dylan Larkin for the Detroit Red Wings is very unhappy with the Red Wings. Didn't like, you know, Stevie Iseman didn't like the way things were going down in Detroit and basically went to the Detroit Red Wings and said, I want to be traded. Now the moment the player I believe goes to the team and says, I want to be traded out goes the no move clause, the no trade clause, you know, because the no move and no trade clause is there to protect the player from ownership wanting to trade him. So he can go to wherever he wants to go. When the owner says, or the GM says, we need to trade you. When the player complains, then I think that those no move and no trade clauses should be wiped out, and then the team has got to protect itself, and then trade the player to whatever return is going to be the best. Now, in baseball, and with Francisco Lindor right out, that's not the situation. He is not asking for a trade.