The New York Mets won again on Wednesday, taking their series against the Washington Nationals. Brandon Nimmo hit a home run for his third straight game.
Host Ryan Finkelstein discusses the game and the impact that Nimmo and Francisco Lindor have had leading the Mets this season.
Also, how big of a loss is Reed Garrett to the Mets bullpen?
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It's the lockdown podcast network, your team every day. Francisco Lindor and Brandon Nemo are the New York Mets to franchise players and they are absolutely delivering right now. On today's show, I'll talk about another Mets victory and how these two stars have been carrying the Mets throughout this season. Hello to all you amazing Mets fans, you're listening to locked on Mets, part of the Locked-On Mets is free and available on all platforms, including YouTube. On the show today, another Mets victory to discuss. I'll break that down in the first segment. In the second segment, we're going to talk about Reed Garrett hitting the I.L. as well as Sterling Marte still being on the I.L. How would these injuries potentially impact the Mets' plans to the deadline? I'll go through that a little bit. Then to close the show, I want to shine some light on the two brightest stars in the New York Mets, talking about Francisco Lindor and Brandon Nemo, how they've carried this team and why they have been a great investment by this franchise to build around moving forward. Before we get to any of that though, I'm your host Ryan Fickelstein. If you want to find any of my work, follow me on X at Fickelstein-Ryan to also find some of my writing at JustBaseball.com, where I work as the managing editor. Before taking on the Rockies to close out their schedule before the All-Star break, the New York Mets are within a game of the wildcard after both the Cardinals and the Padres lost today and the Cardinals lost twice. It is right there for the New York Mets, and a lot of what has happened here goes to the play of the two franchise players with the New York Mets, Francisco Lindor and Brandon Nemo, guys who were some of the most unlucky hitters early in this season. There was numbers that were bearing that out and they were going through the early season slums that they were guys who were still impacting the baseball well, would turn it around and boy have they, and it has been their turnaround that has taken this team from 11 games under to on the verge of a playoff spot and a chance to buy and really be in this mix throughout the rest of the season. So we're going to talk a lot about Nemo and Lindor today, and in this game on Wednesday night, it was Brandon Nemo who got the score and going early for the Mets. He homered. It was the third straight game that Brandon Nemo has hit a home run. Can you imagine that years ago when Brandon Nemo was just a guy that took his walks and his base hits, no one would have expected him to turn it to this type of a power hitter, but all of a sudden he has really found his power stroke and he's not quite on pace for 30 home runs, but I would not count him out to get there this year. So that got the Mets on the board first, and that held for a little bit, but in the fourth inning, Luis Severino had a really bad ending, gave up four hits in the inning, but it was the first three hits that resulted in two runs, and particularly the third hit where a run scored from second, no surprise there, Tyrone Taylor makes a throw home, and it was a bad throw granted. He tried to throw it hard on a line and it gets past Francisco Alvarez, Luis Severino was not backing up the play. That allowed a second run to come into score and really did hurt the Mets early. Severino outside of that mishap was good throughout the game, really didn't struggle much beyond that one inning. So it was a solid start for Hammy Pichon to the seventh. It was good work by Severino overall, but this was a Mets lineup that was not scoring as Patrick Corbin early in this game, and it was a little bit nerve wracking through the first couple innings, waiting to see, all right, when are they going to break out? It's Patrick Corbin. When are the hits going to come? And he had a very manageable pitch count going into the bottom of the sixth inning. I think he was in the low sixties, if not in the high fifties, going into that frame. So they decided to keep him in there, and that was the mistake that the Nationals made, because Patrick Corbin eventually did what Patrick Corbin does, gave up some hits. JD Martinez, Pete Alonso, two base hits to start off a rally. Mark Vientos doubled in JD Martinez. Really bad read by Pete Alonso, he probably should have scored on that play. He doesn't, didn't ultimately matter, but that, that knocks Patrick Corbin out of the game. The Vientos double Derek Law came in, he walked Francisco Alvarez to load the bases, and then Jose Iglesias came through with a base hit up the middle that scored two, then you had another run that came in that inning as well as Jose Iglesias scored on a throwing air by the Nationals, where they were trying to turn to on Harrison Bader, where they had no chance horrible defense by the Nationals in this game. That allowed a run to score. The Mets were up five to two, seventh inning, Luis Severino walks the lead off man, then he gets it out on a bunt in Francisco Alvarez, chose to go underhand on that bunt and somehow got Jacob Young by half of the stride. So, the Mets get a big out there, and all of a sudden, Corbin does, he's going to go into his bullpen to face CJ Abrams, and who's he grabbing? Jake Deakman, raise your hand if you were nervous, because I know why it was. But Jake Deakman got the job done, two big strikeouts against Abrams and James Wood. I will note that he looked much better, throwing strikes, attacking the zone. There was also a lot of pitches that were over the heart of the plate to CJ Abrams, that he didn't hit, granted. Jake Deakman can be a tough at bat on guys when he's right, he's got that delivery where he's really coming at you, where his body's going towards first base and he's throwing across his body. It can be difficult for hitters to pick up, especially when he's throwing hard, and he did look good in this game. But when I looked at the pitch map, and I saw where some of those pitches went, first to Abrams, which was a lot that was right over the heart of the plate. Theoretically, he could have done damage on it. When I watched it live, it looked like really good pitches. But then when you kind of look back at where they were, maybe if Abrams picked them up a little bit better, he would have done damage. And then you had James Wood, where he didn't throw anything in the zone. And rightfully so, James Wood's a rookie, let him get himself out and he did that. So good adding for Deakman doesn't give me confidence in moving forward, but it's at least a first step towards maybe getting there with Deakman. And they're going to need them because this bullpen just had a very, very tough day. Danny Young pitched in this game, and that's because Reid Garrett hit the IEL. I'll talk about that a little bit more in the next segment. Ethaning, like I said, Young comes on. First out that he got was a fantastic play by Francisco Lindor in a ground up the middle at the back of Jesse Winker. Lindor continues to shine with the leather. Didn't have the best offensive game today, but the day prior, he was three for four with the home run. Lindor's doing everything from the Mets. Young gets a second out before he gives up a double. And then the Mets go to Jose Budo, and Jose Budo got a strikeout to get out of that inning and pitched a really solid ninth. The Mets tacked on an insurance run for him, which I think was really good because it kept Budo in the game instead of trying to go to Edwin Diaz or get a little bit crazy with it. I think that extra run just allowed Mendoza to trust that Jose Budo will get the job done. And he did that. He gets his first save. Also, I should mention a glacier scored again, Tyrone Taylor, RBI triple. So got to give those two guys their shout out for getting that insurance run across. But overall, great game by the Mets. Good start from Severino. The lineup got to six runs. So that was very good as well. And the bullpen held up. So a nice carefree victory for the Mets. We'll see if they can get the sweep on Thursday, but I want to talk about this bullpen before we get into our larger conversation about Nemo and Landor. Jake, excuse me, those guys look too similar to me. We get hit the IL. This could be serious. We really don't know. I want to talk about that in just a minute, first though, a word from our sponsors. Today's episode is brought to you by Stitch Fix. With Stitch Fix, you get a stylist who understands your style, size, and budget. And they do all the shopping for you. It is the easiest way to update your wardrobe this season. I got this shirt from Stitch Fix. I said, hey, give me something grimace color. I didn't actually say that. But I went through and I got my most recent box, which is five just for me pieces, and the way that they get your style. You go online, you thumb up or thumb down a list of different items, though they'll put different pictures in front of you in a slideshow. Ooh, I like that. I don't like that. This is after putting in your size, your budget preferences, your style. And then you're going to get a box in the mail with five just for me pieces, plus outfit recommendations and pro styling advice, and you keep it works for you, what you like. You send back the rest. Stitch Fix makes it all so easy. I don't like to go out into the store and shop. This makes it all so much more of a fun and enjoyable experience to get the boxes in the mail to be able to try on the clothes, pick what I like, and then just mail back what I don't style. That makes you feel as good as you look. Get started today at stitchfix.com/mlb and get $20 off your first fix. Stitchfix.com/mlb for $20 off stitchfix.com/mlb must redeem within seven days of sign up. Today's episode's also brought to you by a tax network, USA. Here at the Lockdown mess, we pride ourselves on getting you the latest news for your team, whether it's the off-season, the draft, spring training, or the playoffs. See you around. You know what else is year round? Collection season. Just because the tax season's over doesn't mean the IRS will stop coming after you for unfiled taxes. The IRS can garnish your wages, levy your bank accounts, can even seize your property. Don't let the IRS target you, let the licensed professionals and tax experts at Tax Network USA go to bat for you. For over 14 years of experience and an A+ rating by the Better Business Bureau, Tax Network USA has saved their clients over $1 billion in tax debt. Whether you owe taxes, have complicated matters that require tax planning, or finally hit that parlay this season, and need help correctly filing, call 1-800-549-1000 or visit tnusa.com/lockdown. You can also see the link in the episode description below. For an everyday listener to the show, make sure you become a locked-on Mets insider. This is our tech and service for your updates from me. Anytime some news breaks on the Mets. So today when Reed Garrett hit the IEL, the first place I went once I saw the news was over to subtext to let our everyday locked-on Mets insiders know, and tell them what the latest was with the Mets bullpen. If you want to be part of this tech and service, find a link in the epsilon description, go to subtext.com/lockdownmets. So really bad news for the Mets. Reed Garrett hits the IEL with elbow soreness, and this has all the makings of those two words that you don't want to utter when it comes to a pitcher. It started with some forearm tightness, it's now described as elbow soreness, it's going to get an MRI in his elbow, and you're just hoping it's not the worst for Reed Garrett here. Maybe the Mets avoid the horrible elephant in the room that we all could fear being right around the corner. If they do, we'll see how long he's out for. This could just be a shutdown period. I mentioned this, I think it was yesterday's show, I said there's not a pitcher on the Mets staff that needed the all-star break more than Reed Garrett, and maybe it was just an appearance, you know, it didn't come soon enough where that last appearance ended up doing a min. But it's a guy that's been overused, the Edwin Diaz suspension did not help things, but even prior to that, he's the guy the Mets have always turned to this year because he's the guy that will always present himself if available, this is his first big league season, not in the big leagues, but his longest amount of big league run where he really has been part of the bullpen from nearly jump and has been a consistent relied upon arm for a long time this year. So to lose him, even though he wasn't throwing the ball great lately, that's a pretty devastating loss for this team. I mean, not one that they can't overcome, it just requires more planning at the deadline to get some arms in here because you finally felt like, all right, this team just had a film a time, they're getting a little bit deeper in that bullpen and the same day that you add him into the fold, Garrett hits the IL and you're pretty much just flipping those guys. Granted, when it comes to the roster move, it is Danny Young that came up for Reed Garrett and the reason why that's important is Danny Young wouldn't have been eligible to return unless he's replacing an injured player. So Young comes back, that gives you a second left in the bullpen, but those of you who listen to this show for a while, you know, I am very high on Danny Young, although he hasn't been pitching as well as he was during that stretch at the end of May into the first part of June where he was really great before Edwin Diaz came off the IL and I believe he was the roster move. Since he came back, hasn't been as good. We'll see ultimately what Danny Young looks like and he actually hold on to a spot in this bullpen where he's just another stop gap. I'd probably lean more towards the latter, but he's in the fold now, Bill Mehtan's in the fold. Eric Orzi got sent down and again, Garrett to the IL, that means that the current shape of the bullpen, the state of the bullpen, I should say is Edwin Diaz, Daniel Nunez and I guess Phil Mehtan as your ninth, eighth and seventh inning guys, your late inning relievers Adam Montevino, I guess, and a pinch can be one of those guys, Jake Deakman still probably pitches in a little bit of leverage. We saw him do that tonight, Danny Young, another arm that's in the mix here and then you had the long men, Adrian Houser and Jose Budo, but it feels to me like Budo is trending more and more towards being a leverage reliever for this Mets team. We saw it tonight. I think they just trust that he's going to get outs. He's going to attack the zone. He's going to get balls in the ground. He's going to be able to get his strike outs and I think Jose Budo right now is probably the maybe third most trusted reliever in this pen and I think from the fan base, it might be the second most. I think it's Daniel Nunez and Jose Budo because I don't know if fans trust Edwin Diaz yet, but when it comes to Carlos Mendoza and the inner circle of trust, it gets Diaz, Nunez and Budo and so we could see Budo get more and more innings at the end of games. Now the question is, how frequently can he pitch? How many days off does he need after he throws because that's going to be a real determining factor on how big of a piece he can be for this bullpen or if he might need to be stretched back out and be a starter later on this season, particularly if you don't have Christian Scott for the full year and you need a six men rotation. So he's in a very clear Swiss army type role, Swiss Army knife type role for the Mets. Right now he is invaluable to that bullpen. We'll see how things continue to progress there and we'll see what moves the Mets make at the deadline. I have a lot of stuff playing when it comes to that, but doing a lot of research on deadline options for this Mets team. So we're going to have a lot of fun discussions over the next week, week and a half here as we go through the all-star break and there's some dead time to really talk about what the Mets need to address and how they can do that. Clearly the biggest area of concern is that bullpen, but we'll see. Maybe the Mets can get a sweep on Thursday, David Peterson on the mountain against Mackenzie Gore and a pretty fresh bullpen as they only needed Deakman, Young and Budo in this game. So they stayed away from Edwin Diaz, Phil Mayton should be good to go. Adam Adubino, Adrian Houser potentially and hopefully Peterson gives them some length as well. One final note about the injury state of the Mets here. On Thursday, Sterling Marte is going to get imaging done on his knee again as well. So you're going to have some results that Carlos Mendoza will probably share. I don't know if it would be before the game or after the game about Garrett. What's going to happen with his elbow? Is he going to be shut down for the season? Is it a couple of weeks? We'll find out. And then Sterling Marte is a big one because the Mets are not getting great production offensively from the collection of DJ Stewart Tyrone Taylor and on occasion Ben Gamel or Jeff McNeal when he slides into the outfield. Granted, I will note that Tyrone Taylor, his defense has been felt. I feel like the Mets could roll with him as they're starting right fielder in the playoffs or even just in the run towards the playoffs. And I think they can win with him because he gives you so much intangibles with his play out and right field, which is significantly better than what you were getting from Sterling Marte. But there is a hole on this team when it comes to outfielders that can hit against left handed pitching. For whatever reason, Harrison Bander, who traditionally throughout his career, has been far better hitting against lefties than righties. Those numbers have flipped this year. He's got reverse splits. Same thing with Tyrone Taylor. I've beaten that point to the ground on this show, how he just continues to struggle against lefties. Today he had an opportunity bases loaded two outs, Patrick Corbin on the mound and he couldn't get a hit. It was pretty bad at that swinging at some really bad pitches. So getting a right handed compliment that can mash against lefties is going to be very important for this team at the deadline, but they might just have strongly Marte. So if Marte's imaging comes back clean and maybe it's just a situation where they say all right, we're going to keep, we're going to have him shut down obviously through the all-star break and maybe even a little bit beyond that, but you'll get him back maybe the last week before the deadline and get him back into games. There might be a way where they don't have to address their position player court because I think if they have Marte in place, a lot of the issues we've seen lately when it comes to Stewart in particular can go away, they can option him down to bring back Marte if you wanted to eventually option gamble or DFA gamble. You could bring up one of your prospects, whether that's Acuna, whether that's a guy like Luke Ritter who's hitting really well in the minor leagues, Rylan Bannon, not necessarily a prospect, but a guy that's not in a minor league deal that's done very well or if it's Brett Beatty, they get another bat in your bench. But having Marte in the fold is going to be very important to the Mets down the stretch. And if they get a bad image on Thursday, that is a clear area of knee where the Mets don't only have to go out and get bullpen help to potentially deal with the loss of Garrett and just the need they already had, but they're also going to have to find a potential right fielder that can slot in and particularly hit well against left-handed pitching. So we're going to find out about those things. But what I wanted to close the show on today is talking about Brandon Nemo and Francisco Lindor. These two guys have been absolute money for the Mets down the stretch here throughout June in particular and even now into July, they are carrying this team and I want to give them some recognition for that. So we'll talk about it in just a minute. First though, a word from our sponsors. This episode of Lockdown Mets is brought to you by booking.com, booking.yea. With summer travel heating up, especially travel for baseball games, it's time to explore those US cities. You've always secretly wanted to learn more about, yes, we're talking about your rival cities. After they all start to break the New York Mets, well, head to Miami for a four game set. I'll actually be there because I'm a South Florida local here, but if you need a stay, head over to booking.com and with hotels, bed and breakfasts, vacation rentals, resorts and so much more on booking.com. You might find your perfect stay even in your baseball rivals city. The right state can make you a fan of any US city, even your rivals. So book today on booking.com on the site or in the booking.com app. Today's episode's also brought to you by Game Time. Game Time is the fastest and easiest way to buy tickets for all the sports, music, comedy and theater events. They are you. And if you're trying to go to a Mets game, this is the strategy that I have currently been employing to get into the ballpark at the best possible rates. I don't look for my tickets two days before the game. 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Now I think going into this season, there might have been a question. Can Francisco Lindor and Brandon Nemo be your best two players and you have a winning team? A really good team that has a chance. The potential win it all. And while I'm sure there are still fans that will hear me put this out there and say no. Those two guys can't be your best players. You need Juan Soto. You need to make that next splash to get a better player in here. I don't necessarily know if that's the case. Granted, you have to build the right team around them. But what we've seen lately is these two guys, Lindor and Nemo, have the goods to take you places and they have been playing great baseball. And not only just doing it with the bat and the glove for both of these guys and contributing in big ways, it's the leadership that they have taken on. The two players that are locked up, Francisco Lindor signed all the way through until was like 2031, I believe, is his last year on the contract. I think Nemo is a year prior than that, but they're signed throughout the rest of this decade. There is one thing that we know for sure. Francisco Lindor and Brandon Nemo are going to be there for the New York Mets. And that's a really good thing to just have as a foundation and a building block. And I think what these two guys represent, it's hard workers first and foremost. Brandon Nemo has talked about it. The reason why he says the Mets had faith in him to invest this money is they knew that the character that he had, what he had been like behind the scenes. And he's not the type of guy that's going to get his money and just relax and take his foot off the gas. This is a guy that is going to keep pushing the envelope and the maturation of his game is evident. They have seen him year over year over year through his entire career with this franchise, get better and better and better. There was his breakout in 2018 where he put up a great season. But that was sort of just Brandon Nemo relying on his youth and athleticism and just his raw talent. And yes, he was refined as a player that had been developed for a long time. But he didn't really know all of the trade secrets that he's learned now. And it ran him into some problems. He had some real injury issues, 2019, 2021 really struggling to stay on the field and he's learned from that. And you've seen him now since 2022 putting together, you know, knock on wood, but this would be a third straight healthy season for Brandon Nemo where he knows his body. There's times where Nemo gets pulled for a game or he sits out and it's because he knows his body knows all the metrics and the data behind his own usage and they just have figured things out for him. And beyond that, he has really learned how to optimize what he's good at and add power to his swing. Since moving into the two hole, Brandon Nemo has nine home runs. He's hitting 337 with the 430 on base and a 696 slug has 27 RBIs that since June 13th. And I don't have the stats for today's game where he homework, but I have everything up to that point from June 13th through July 9th. And there's winds above replacement, right? That's what fan graphs has that tells you who are the most valuable players in baseball and it is an all encompassing stat taking into account base running defense offense, everything. Brandon Nemo has posted a 1.8 F or since June 13th. That is tied with Gunnar Henderson, L.A. De La Cruz and 0.1 behind Shoyo Tani for the best mark in baseball. So he's second behind Oli Otani and Gunnar and L.A. De La Cruz are right there with him and he homered in the game today. If nobody else homered, there is a chance that I could regurgitate this statue tomorrow with the update from fan graphs and Brandon Nemo will have been the best player in baseball since June 13th. It's pretty impressive stuff. During that span, he's top 10 at home runs. He's leading the league in RBIs. He's just been unbelievable. And you look at what he did to get his money a couple of years ago. He had 16 home runs. He just hit his 16th home run tonight. He got 16 home runs at ACEs games. It took him 151 to get to 16 back in 2022. So the power is off the charts. He's nine RBIs away from breaking his career high from last year of 68. So he's sitting at 59 in the driver's seat to not only clear that, but he could push for 100 RBIs this year and there's a world where he gets the 30 home runs. He could be watching the first 30 and 100 seasons from Brandon Nemo and I never, never thought that would happen. Not a knock on him. That's just not the player that I saw him as. I saw him as more of, of course, the on-base guy that he was. And last year, we saw a little bit more and I was hoping, all right, maybe you get a consistent 25 from Nemo. And I did say this preseason or the spring training that I could envision Nemo becoming a 30 home run hitter. But now that you're seeing it's still jaw dropping, the way he's driving and runs coming through with runners in scoring position, it's just been a joy to watch him play and watch him evolve throughout his career here. He got six years left after this season. And yeah, maybe the last two don't look quite as good, but I feel pretty confident about the next three or four beyond this year that Brandon Nemo is going to be a player that you can just pencil in starting left fielder year in year out going to show up play a bunch of games, hit his home runs, drive in his runs, get on base of the good clip, play solid defense. He's just a really good player and at $20.25 million per season, that is a great investment by Steve Cohen and this franchise and moving forward, he's a building block. And then you have Francisco Landor, who's the franchise player. And I think he's starting to get some respect because he was so disrespected by not being put in the All-Star game, despite how well he has played lately, that there's now a rallying cry where there's people who aren't even Mets fans who are throwing out the numbers on Landor. He's on a Hall of Fame track. We've talked about that on this show before and beyond being on a Hall of Fame track. He consistently is one of the best producers when it comes to wins above replacement. Now part of that is because the glove weighs that heavily in Landor's war numbers, okay? Because when you have a guy that's playing shortstop, you can rack up war a lot more quickly. Because he's a great shortstop, that helps him. So you look back, since he debuted, there hasn't been a shortstop that's been better when it comes to F4 and kind of going down the line at the check. At one point, that stood true even since 2021, since it came to the Mets, I had to look and see how that might have been adjusted since. But what he does for you is he plays a great defense, he runs the base as well, he's now really becoming a great base dealer, not that he wasn't before, but he takes advantage of the rules, that's because anybody on this team to be able to pick his spots and it, not only is he an effective base dealer as far as racking up the numbers, he's efficient with his base dealing, which is really important towards winning baseball. And when he's all in offensively, he can be as good as anybody from Cisco Landor might just announce himself as an MVP candidate. Now do I think he's going to edge out Shohei Otani and Bryce Harper? No, I do not. Could he be third in the National League and MVP when the year is done? If the New York Mets end up in a wildcard spot and even better if they end up in the second spot or even if they push the Braves for the top wildcard spot, if this is a Mets team that somehow finds their way to 90 wins, which sounds a little bit crazy for them to get there from where they started. But if this team stays as hot as they've been, you never really know, Landor is going to get a lot of recognition when it comes to the voting, or at least he should. Playing in Landor lately hasn't worked out, but I really do believe that this guy's going to be at least a top 10 MVP finisher, maybe top five at best top three, and you look at what he has done since going into the leadoff spot on May 18th. He is leading the National League and wins up a replacement by a considerable margin. He's at three wins above replacement going into play today. The next closest guy was at 2.3 and that's in 46 games played. If you look at that rate, three wins in 46 games and you extrapolate that out to 162 game season, he'd be like a 10 and a half win player. Aaron Judge, when he won his MVP with the 62 home runs and the 131 RBIs, he was an 11.2 win player. So that just shows you for this, you know, better than quarter of the season, 46 game sample, how good Francisco Landor has been. He's hitting 306, 369 on base, 539 slug that's not accounting for tonight's game granted where he won 0 for four. So those numbers will take a slight dip, but still even with that, he's top 10 and way to runs creative plus batting average slugging, he's or was second in run scored in the league. Brandon Nimmo is tied with them. Nimmo Homer today. So Nimmo will pass him up on that, but that just tells you something right there. Two of the top three run scores in the game over this period of time of about 50 games. That's why you have such a good offense when these two guys are just getting the job done, whether it's hitting home runs, driving and runs themselves or scoring, you know, just just using their speed even because even Nimmo is getting in on stealing bases. Not to mention, of course, Landor at the defense, all the clutch plays that he makes. Nine outs above average this year. And his third most immeasurably baseball behind two center fielders and Jacob Young and Michael Ciani. So he has been the best defensive shortstop again by that metric, plays every inning, plays every day. And on top of everything that I just laid out with Francisco Landor, the last thing I'll close with is the leadership and it goes to both of these guys, but particularly Landor from the off season, taking Mark Vientos and Brett Beatty under his wing and helping bring them along defensively. To starting the players only meeting that sparked this run for the Mets. And then I've said it before, I'll set it again, answering every single question the New York media had to throw in him after that players only meeting. I think it was an 11 minute media session that he handled with absolute grace and professionalism, A plus plus, when it comes to that side. And that's important when you play in New York. He has just come into his own this year. This is the year Francisco Landor, I truly believe that the year where he not only has a great season for the Mets, I think he's done that the last two years prior to this. But the year that he really assumes that captain ship of the New York Mets, that leadership, where he really takes the baton that David Wright once held and moves it forward to hopefully a era of winning for the New York Mets. At least we all got our fingers crossed on that and Brandon Nemo as his sidekick as his Robin in this also goes out leads by example, tastes guys under his wing as well. I think with these two guys as pillars, the Mets as a franchise are in really good shape. Francisco Alvarez might become the best player in a couple of years, but they're going to have these two guys right there with them. Maybe they make a big splash in frequency. Maybe there's another top prospect that comes up and does good things, but you're always going to know that shortstop and left field are handled. And I think that is a really comforting thing moving forward. That's why they're paying the contracts that they are, but in a league where long contracts can typically end up biting you, these contracts so far have aged very, very well, hats off to Steve Cohen and the Mets for an office for getting these deals done when they did. And hopefully they can continue to produce throughout the rest of this season. Anyway, that's going to be all for today's edition of Lockdown Mets. I appreciate all of you who tuned into the show. If you are watching on YouTube, do me a favor. Hit that subscribe button. We're trying to get to 9,000 subs by opening day, excuse me, by opening day by the all star break. We want to get to 9,000 subs. So I appreciate all of you who continue to subscribe. If you're listening on the audio side, follow rate and review wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to follow me on social, you can do so at Finkelstein Ryan, but also follow the show at locked on Met. Thank you for making locked on Metcher. First, listen to your first watch every day. Now, for your second watch, head over to YouTube and check out Lockdown Sports today, which is streaming 24/7 on YouTube. Lockdown Sports today has our local experts from each team and our league wide experts from each league to give you all the latest in the world of sports, and not only is this streaming 24/7 on YouTube, you can also check out Lockdown Sports streaming 24/7 on Amazon Fire TV. Download the Amazon Music app today! (upbeat music)
