Francisco Lindors Guardians reunion, Javier Bezs turnaround at the plate

Publish date: 2024-05-09

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Correction: An earlier version of The Windup misidentified the location of the Mets–Guardians series. The games will take place in New York, not Cleveland. 

Francisco Lindor faces his old team for the first time since the trade, Ken sets the record straight, and we have a positive update on one of the most emotional baseball stories of the year. I’m Levi Weaver, here with Ken Rosenthal — welcome to The Windup!

Smiled and said ‘Yes, I think we’ve met before’

It’s gotta be a little weird when you used to be the face of the franchise, and now your job is to beat them. Does it make it more or less so that they’ve changed the entire team name since you were there?

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That’s the situation for Francisco Lindor, whose Mets will play the Guardians for the first time since the 2021 trade that sent Lindor from Cleveland to New York. Zack Meisel and Tim Britton took a few minutes to rehash the details and dig into whether each team would do it again, knowing what they know now.

• Cleveland should probably have made the move a year earlier, when Lindor had more team control and the return would have been a bit heftier, but it’s not like they whiffed on it: Andrés Giménez was evidently a suitable enough return to warrant a nine-figure extension, and despite his slow start, he’s a big part of the team’s plans.

• The Mets did the same with Lindor (though not all nine-figure extensions are the same — Lindor’s deal was three years longer and worth $234.5 million more than Giménez’s). That extension hasn’t gotten off to a great start either, though: Lindor is hitting just .225 (.718 OPS) this year.

Francisco Lindor signs autographs before a game in 2019. (Jason Miller / Getty Images)

They’ll face off for three games starting tonight. And hey, Cleveland fans. You have an opportunity here.

More Mets:

Ken’s Corner: The story behind the story

The inspiration for my story today about four Rays hitters who overhauled their swings and approaches last season was a baseless rant by Evan Roberts of New York’s WFAN Radio on May 8, when Tampa Bay was 28-7.

Roberts said there was “something suspicious” about the Rays’ start, then referenced The Athletic’s 2019 report that revealed the Astros’ illegal electronic sign stealing.

“Are you going to wake up when the article is written in The Athletic, or are you going to wake up now?” Roberts asked. “Sometimes you don’t need evidence. Sometimes you gotta say what I’m watching doesn’t make sense.”

Actually, a serious journalistic outlet does need evidence when reporting on wrongdoing, but we digress. Most players work extremely hard at their craft, which is how they get to the majors in the first place. I wanted to learn how the Rays hitters I wrote about — Josh Lowe, Isaac Paredes, Taylor Walls and Luke Raley — laid the foundations for their 2023 breakouts.

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The Rays, mind you, are not perfect. Their pitchers get injured at a high rate. And when I approached a team executive about doing a story on three recent acquisitions that turned out to be coups, he chuckled and said sure, as long as I write about how the Rays traded Trea Turner, Jake Cronenworth and Nathaniel Lowe, too.

Oh, and one other thing: If the Rays are doing “something suspicious,” they sure did not do it very well in New York, home of WFAN. During their weeklong stay in the city that ended Thursday, they lost two of four to the Yankees and two of three to the Mets.

Maybe a certain talk show host should read my story.

More Rays:

Us guys decide we’d rather walk the walk

Javier Báez (Rick Osentoski / USA Today)

It was April 13 when Tigers manager A.J. Hinch made the move: He benched the team’s second-highest-paid star Javier Báez for forgetting how many outs there were in the inning, resulting in a double play.

At the time, Báez was hitting .122 with a .328 OPS in his first 45 plate appearances of the year, and the team was 2-9 (though they would later win that game).

Since then, Báez has been a man on fire. He’s hitting .305 since that benching, and the Tigers are a respectable 17-13 in the 30 games since.

It’s a good sign for the Tigers and Hinch. These things don’t always go the way a manager hopes, and while talent is always the biggest factor, often the player’s emotional response to a benching is as much about the trust built between the player and manager as it is about the player’s mental fortitude.

The Tigers aren’t likely to rattle off a hot streak to vault them into the postseason as a result of this development, buuuuuut it is the AL Central. Not only has Detroit pulled into a second-place tie with Cleveland, but the division-leading Twins are only 24-20 — just 3.5 games up on both teams.

‘Til you called out and told me I belong in this place

I’ve been keeping an eye on this story, first reported by Kevin Baxter of the LA Times, for the last week or so, and there appears to be a positive development.

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Dennis Kasumba is an 18-year-old orphan from Uganda, who — under the tutelage of volunteer coach Paul Wafula — has been creatively coming up with ways to work out in hopes of playing professional baseball.

His videos have caught the attention of tens of thousands of viewers on TikTok and Instagram as he uses old tires, water bottles, or barrels full of water to put himself through rigorous training.

One of those viewers was Atlanta-area attorney Joshua Williams, who got Kasumba an invitation to play in the relatively new MLB Draft League in June.

But in recent weeks, Kasumba was twice denied a visa, reportedly due to difficulty in establishing family ties that would ensure he returns to Uganda when it expires.

Which, as you can imagine, is a particularly challenging hurdle to overcome when you’re an orphan.

Yesterday, however, he was finally approved for a visa. Kasumba, who Wafula found working at a slaughterhouse at age 14 because he needed food, will receive meals and lodging while playing in the league.

The odds are still incredibly long. Kasumba is just 5-foot-7 and weighs (by Baxter’s estimation) maybe 150 lbs. He’s been playing on a makeshift baseball field, and only last year did the Dodgers sign the first two Ugandan minor leaguers in MLB history.

But what he lacks in experience, it’s obvious he makes up for in heart and determination. You have to hope some team takes a flier on Kasumba this summer, just to see what that relentless drive produces once it gets some coaching in pro ball.

Handshakes and High Fives

Jose Altuve is expected to return to action this weekend against the A’s — maybe even tonight. So, what happens to Mauricio Dubón, who leads the Astros in batting average? He might become a super-utility weapon, says Chandler Rome.

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What the heck has gotten into the Cardinals? Three games after scoring 18 runs against the Brewers, they hit seven home runs and beat the Dodgers 16-8, including four in the third inning — off Julio Urías, whose ERA jumped from 3.61 to 4.39 last night.

Remember when we told you about Bryce Harper possibly playing first base? Nick Groke has an update: he’s “checking all the boxes.”

Jayson Stark’s “Weird and Wild” column focuses on the historic ineptitude of the A’s, but as always, you get a whole lot more, like the guy who took a home run swing on Sunday and the ball landed on Saturday. Or the hitting streak that ended on a hit.

Jim Bowden has a list of 27 under-the-radar prospects for your perusal, while Eno Sarris looks at some previously-top-tier pitchers who have gotten off to bad starts.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: The Yankees lost an important player to the IL yesterday. This time it’s defensive catching wizard Jose Trevino, who has a hamstring strain.

Max Clark of Franklin Community High School in Indianapolis has the talent to be a No. 1 pick, just … not this year, says Keith Law.

And lastly, the Yankees took three out of four against the Blue Jays. The series was … spicy.

The Windup Playlist

Every week, our subheads come from song lyrics, and every Friday we reveal which songs they came from. Here’s this week’s list. The songs have been added to our monthly playlist.

(Top photo: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)

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