Ken Rosenthal Pushes Back Hard on Mike Francesa’s Francisco Lindor Trade Claim

The New York Mets are in last place in the NL East with a 39-54 record. They’re 12 games out of the final Wild Card spot. And now there’s a messy public disagreement about whether they’re actually trying to trade Francisco Lindor.

Earlier this week, Mike Francesa went on his show and dropped a claim that the Mets aren’t just open to trading Lindor but are actively shopping him. The radio host linked it to tension between Lindor and teammate Juan Soto, saying the two don’t get along. “Everything I’ve heard all along is that they don’t like each other,” Francesa said. “I don’t think there’s any question the Mets are going to try very, very hard to trade Lindor.”

Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic isn’t buying any of it. “I don’t see it,” Rosenthal said Tuesday. “The one person who reported it was Mike Francesa, the radio talk show host in New York. With all due respect to Mike, he is not a beat reporter, and I have not seen any of this from any of the beat reporters. I have not heard it myself.”

Rosenthal is essentially saying: if this were real, the people who cover the team every day would have picked up on it. They haven’t. The Mets have also not confirmed any trade discussions involving Lindor.

Then Soto himself jumped in to kill the feud narrative. “There were no issues last year — at all,” Soto said. “We didn’t have any beef or anything. Definitely, our relationship is getting better because it takes time. When you meet a girl, you don’t start kissing her right away.”

That’s a pretty clear denial from the guy who supposedly can’t stand Lindor.

So what’s actually happening here? The Mets are bad and they know it. They have a $341 million payroll and they’re sitting at the bottom of their division. That usually means the front office at least fields calls about big contracts. Lindor is making $34 million this year with a full no-trade clause. Moving him would be complicated even if they wanted to.

Francesa has a huge audience in New York and a history of breaking real news. But he’s also a talk show host who sometimes runs with information that doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. Rosenthal is one of the most connected reporters in baseball. When he says he hasn’t heard anything, that carries weight.

The Mets finish their three-game series against the Kansas City Royals on Thursday. Then they head into the All-Star break with plenty of questions and not many answers. Whether Lindor stays or goes is probably the biggest one hanging over the franchise right now.