PORT ST. LUCIE — The Mets will not be naming a captain anytime soon. Not in 2026, and not as long as Steve Cohen is running the show.
“As long as I’m owning the team, there will never be a team captain,” Cohen said Monday at Clover Park. “That was my decision.”
This effectively put an end to the speculation that the Mets would name Francisco Lindor the captain. For years, rumors have circulated that the club was going to name Lindor the king of the Queens clubhouse. After David Wright’s No. 5 was retired last summer, the rumors hit a fever-pitch, especially after a leaked video that appeared to come from MLB showed Wright passing the proverbial torch to Lindor.
The video was quickly deleted, but it only amplified the discussion. Fans expected Lindor to be named the fifth captain in team history, but the 2025 season came and went without any sort of announcement, and the offseason passed without one either.
Now, there is confirmation that no such announcement will ever come.
“My view is, the locker room is unique,” Cohen said. “Let the locker room sort it out year in and year out.”
Cohen has long held the belief that the captain is not for him to determine as an owner. The Mets have been without one since Wright retired following the 2018 season. Wright held the title from 2013-2018.
Maybe there is something to this philosophy.
The Mets struggled without clubhouse leadership during Wright’s final seasons. With his neck and back preventing him from being on the field for much of 2016-2018, Wright was forced to spend most of his time in Port St. Lucie rehabbing. While other veterans like Neil Walker and Curtis Granderson stepped up, they were careful not to cross a certain line. They weren’t captains and they didn’t want to take the title away from anyone else, especially not a respected figure like Wright.
In 2017, the veterans were all traded away. When Mickey Callaway replaced Terry Collins as the manager in 2018, the culture completely eroded. There was little accountability with a rookie manager who took offense to being questioned, and showed little interest in even commanding respect of his clubhouse.
Accountability completely disappeared.
The Mets are on their third manager since then, with Carlos Mendoza now responsible for implementing the culture of the team, something Cohen has been happy with through two seasons. Mendoza has one more year left on his contract.
“I think Carlos is a great manager, OK? I think he’s a great motivator,” Cohen said. “I believe a manager’s main job is culture. Obviously, you’re making in-game decisions, right? But it’s really about creating the right culture, and I think Carlos does it really well.”
The team leaders help uphold the culture and the standards set by both policing and supporting the rest of the group. Since Cohen became the majority owner in 2021, the leaders have been Lindor, Brandon Nimmo, Pete Alonso, Max Scherzer and to a lesser extent, Starling Marte. Now, only Lindor remains, and whether he wants to lead or not, outfielder Juan Soto has an outsized influence on the team just by the nature of being the highest-paid player on the team, and one of the highest-paid players in baseball.
Reports that Lindor and Soto didn’t get along last season, their first on the Mets together, were overblown. The two might not be extremely close, but insist they have a strong relationship. This season, the Mets have brought in a group of players known for their key roles in other clubhouses, like Bo Bichette, Freddy Peralta and Marcus Semien, a former captain of the Texas Rangers.
They’re all expected to contribute positively to the culture, leading in their own ways.
“I think that’s the thing that a lot of people may get misunderstood about a veteran leader. You can say captain, or you can say a group of veteran leaders,” Semien said over the weekend. “I think that’s a better way to put it… We all want to be the best versions of ourselves in the field, and if everybody gets the right information out to each other, and we win more games, I think everybody would be happy.”
Not naming one singular captain could prevent someone from getting upset over threats to power. It’s a way of saying everyone in the clubhouse is equal to some degree, while still ensuring there are players modeling the right behaviors.
But then again, it also could offend someone who wanted that role. It’s unclear if Lindor or anyone else in the current Mets clubhouse believes they should hold the title, though Cohen does communicate frequently with the leadership group.
Regardless, no one should be getting their hopes up.
“It’s my own views on how I want a locker room to be,” Cohen reiterated. “My view is, every year the team is different, so let the team kind of figure it out in the locker room, rather than having a designation. Actually, having a captain in baseball doesn’t happen often. It’s actually unusual. So whatever previous ownership did, that was their way of doing things.
“I look at things differently.”
