Former Met Javier Baez makes quiet return to a town that might have been his, talks Francisco Lindor

“Aw really? You want to talk about that?”

Javier Baez had just changed into his baseball pants on his first afternoon back in a New York clubhouse this season, and a reporter was bugging him about Francisco Lindor and the Mets. Already? Thumbs down to that question.

But just as he did with the real thumbs down incident last year at Citi Field – a generally misunderstood case of Baez trying to help and protect his friend – he handled the moment with the quiet class that can surprise people who only see his on-field flash. He smiled and settled in for an interview.

Baez had slipped quietly into Yankee Stadium as a member of the Detroit Tigers. Had either he or the Mets drifted into a slightly different lane last winter, New York could have been his town for years to come. The Mets floated a number around $125 million, but were also pursuing Max Scherzer, Kevin Gausman, Starling Marte, Mark Canha and Eduardo Escobar.

Baez was interested in returning to settle in at second base next to Lindor. But the Tigers offered $15 million more, and the Mets didn’t match. It was simply too much money to reject.

Did Baez think he would return to the Mets?

“Yeah I did, for a minute,” he said. “But everything happens for a reason.”

As a Tiger, Baez has followed Lindor’s season from a distance, and is aware that it is going far better than the one he tried to help save in 2021. Last year, Lindor, feeling pressure to live up to his $341 million contract, failed repeatedly to get out of his own way.

It’s not worth rehashing the rat/raccoon fib or repeated complaining about Mets fans other than to say that none of those issues have repeated this season. And Lindor has been far more productive on the field, if still not playing like a superstar. He is driving in runs, making plays at shortstop, and posting better numbers overall.

“It has been great,” Baez said of Lindor’s success. “I really don’t follow my numbers, so I don’t follow anybody else’s. But I know he’s doing fine.

“Obviously last year was last year. He never stopped working and trying to make adjustments. He’s done what he’s done in that past, so his name is out there because of that. I know he’s going to do this every year. Honestly, he’s just got to go out there and play hard.”

Baez made the thumbs down gesture last year to create an inside joke with Lindor and take some of the pressure off.

“I think he just had to adjust to the way things are there,” he said. “I think he’s doing a good job, when he was struggling, taking things the right way, as a man.”

Baez has not played well this year, batting .198 with a .234 on-base percentage, and chasing more pitches than he ever has before. He’s clearly feeling the pressure – it was Baez, not me, who began talking about his own problems – but considers that pressure less severe than what Lindor faced last season in New York.

“Everybody struggles,” he said. “It’s just how you’re going to get out of it. It’s like me right now. I don’t have this pressure that he had last year, but still when you struggle, you struggle. And when it’s the right time to get out of it, I’m going to get out of it.”

For what it’s worth, Tigers brass views Baez as a free swinger who is swinging way too freely at present but will dig out of it. They see no signs of decline. “He’s just in swing mode right now,” one Tigers official said.

Do players as talented as Baez and Lindor lose confidence during long slumps, or do they maintain belief that they will ultimately ignite?

“Yeah, I mean, l think both ways,” Baez said. “You think, ‘How long is this going to take?’ In my case, I’m always the same guy. It doesn’t matter if I’m hitting .500 or hitting what I’m hitting right now. I’m here to be the same guy.”

Tigers people back that claim. The team sees Baez as a positive clubhouse presence. Once Thumbgate cooled – and it got so hot that the Mets discussed releasing Baez, according to a person involved in those conversations – the Mets felt the same way. Baez helped take pressure off Lindor and developed a warm relationship with owner Steve Cohen.

The first-place Mets are doing well without Baez, far better than they did with him. But all sides would have welcomed a reunion, too, had the offseason shaken out just a tiny bit differently.

“Yeah, it was fun,” Baez said of his two months playing alongside Lindor – two months that might have been a preview of the Mets’ future, but ended up as a blip.

“At the same time, that losing streak that we had, that wasn’t that fun.”