New York Mets 2023 Season In Review: MVP

Now that the 2023 season is over for the New York Mets, we will spend the next several weeks taking a look at the big picture. This deep dive will be broken down into phases every weekday, continuing today with a look at the Mets’ 2023 MVP.

It’s safe to say that the 2023 season isn’t one that the New York Mets will be writing home about. The Mets began the year expecting to contend for a World Series crown and finished it with their co-aces set to face off against each other in the American League Championship Series, which is far from ideal. That isn’t to say that the season was without value as the Mets did receive some strong contributions from core players on their roster.

Pete Alonso delivered 46 home runs and could easily have gotten to 60 if a hand injury in June didn’t derail his power for a month. Kodai Senga also flashed ace potential in his rookie year, but the 2023 MVP of the Mets has to be shortstop Francisco Lindor, who can add this award to the Met of the Month accolades he earned in September.

The 2023 season was Lindor’s best as a Met as he hit .254 with 31 home runs and 98 RBIs, finishing just two RBIs shy of the 100-RBI plateau for the second straight year. Lindor also racked up 30 stolen bases to join the 30-30 club for the first time in his career while racking up 6 WAR, his highest total in that metric since 2018, due in part to his continued defensive excellence.

Those accomplishments are even more impressive when we learned this week that Lindor was playing the entire season with discomfort in his elbow. Lindor kept that pain quiet and underwent surgery recently to remove a bone spur in that elbow, which is an impressive display of commitment to his teammates since he could have easily opted to go under the knife during the season when it was clear that the team wasn’t going anywhere.

Perhaps now Mets fans will finally start to embrace Lindor as a true star and get over the fact that his debut season wasn’t the greatest. There are a lot of areas where the Mets do need work but Lindor’s presence as an anchor at shortstop gives them a tremendous building block to work with going forward.