With three hits in Monday’s 2-0 win over the Miami Marlins, Francisco Lindor became the 24th active player in Major League Baseball to reach the 1,500-hit milestone.
A clean single in the fifth inning off Miami’s Tyer Phillips was the magic marker — his 604th hit in his 607th game with the Mets after 896 hits in 777 games with the Cleveland Guardians.
“It means I’ve been in the big leagues for 10 years plus,” Lindor, in his 11th season, joked. “It’s special. It’s definitely special. I’m blessed. I’m blessed to be in the position I’m in.”
This likely will be just the start of Mets milestones for the 31-year-old, who is in his fifth season with the Mets and is signed through 2031. At his current pace, he will enter the franchise’s top-20 list in hits by the end of 2025 and could approach the top 10 in two years.
“I’ve been blessed to be surrounded by a lot of good coaches, a lot of good hitting coaches, and a lot of teammates that help me, give me good scouting reports, and help me be successful in this league,” Lindor said. “I’m very appreciative of the moment and everybody that’s contributed to my journey, but I’m just happy we won.”
If he were to continue his current career pace of 176 hits per season, Lindor would reach the 3,000-hit milestone in nine years. Such a feat would make him a lock for the Hall of Fame one day, though he knows that he is only halfway there.
“It does go to a place where it’s like, ‘Wow, this is a cool moment,’ but you just have to continue to put your head down and climb the mountain. You can’t let it get too big,” Lindor said. “I would love to be [in the Hall of Fame] one day, but it’s still very far for me. I look at a guy like Carlos Beltran that has twice the numbers I have today, and he’s not in there right now, and I think he should be a Hall of Famer.
“You have guys like Jimmy Rollins that I think should also be in the Hall of Fame, yet they’re not in it. For me, the Hall of Fame is still far-fetched. I would love to be there one day. It would be one of the biggest honors, if not the biggest, of my career, but still a long way to go.”
