Francisco Lindor gets one step closer to elusive Mets All-Star nod but two other stars have work to do
Join Post Sports+ for exciting subscriber-only features, including real-time texting with Mike Puma about the inside buzz on the Mets.Francisco Lindor is on the path toward recognition. The Mets de facto captain is the leading vote-getter — by plenty — at National League shortstop in the first balloting update for the All-Star Game. Lindor, who somehow has never made the Midsummer Classic as a Met, has tallied just over a million votes, or 400,000 more than second place (the Dodgers’ Mookie Betts).
The Phillies’ Trea Turner is third. Barring something unforeseen, Lindor will crack his first All-Star Game since 2019 and fifth overall.In recent seasons with the Mets, he had become accustomed to slow starts and excellence otherwise, which had equated to three top 10 finishes for NL MVP, but no July honors. This year has been different, Lindor doing just about everything well in hitting .279 with an .828 OPS, 14 home runs and 13 steals in his first 70 games, some of which have been played through a broken pinky toe. The Mets have two other potential starters, though Pete Alonso and Juan Soto at the moment would be on the outside looking in. In Monday’s voting reveal, Alonso is second among NL first basemen and trailing the Dodgers’ Freddie Freeman by about 240,000 votes.
The competition is an interesting one, Alonso bringing more power but Freeman entering play Monday hitting .332. Soto ranks fourth among NL outfielders with 625,618 votes, trailing Cub and former Mets prospect Pete Crow-Armstrong (1,126,119), his teammate Kyle Tucker (704,740) and the Dodgers’ Teoscar Hernández (685,553). Among other Mets, Francisco Alvarez comes in third at catcher, Jeff McNeil fifth at second base, Mark Vientos sixth at third base, Starling Marte fifth at DH and Brandon Nimmo 10th and Tyrone Taylor 13th in the outfield. Phase 1 of the voting ends on June 26, at which time the two top vote-getters at each spot (and the top six outfielders) will advance to ...