DISHIN’ & SWISHIN’
Lindor’s clubhouse basketball hoop has helped Mets bond during spring training
Jett Williams made something very clear to his Mets teammates during his three-week stint in the big league clubhouse this spring: If his teammates want to dish it, he can take it.
But he’ll also give it right back, sometimes in the form of a longrange three-point shot.
The Mets’ top overall prospect became a fixture of the clubhouse basketball hoop in February and early March. Despite his 5-foot-6 stature, Williams regularly engaged more senior members of the Mets in shooting competitions. It’s not a regulation hoop and the Mets don’t have regulation basketballs, but youth-sized ones instead.
“Everybody keeps saying it’s the perfect size for me,” Williams recently told the Daily News. “Because my hands are so small.”
Williams has taller brothers, so he’s heard worse.
There’s been a noticeable change in the locker room atmosphere this spring. Gone are the sky-high expectations that followed the Mets in 2023 after a 101-win season and an expensive winter. The future Hall of Fame pitchers are also gone.
When Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander were around last spring, the atmosphere felt more business-like. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but when there are two older veterans like that in the room, their presence is felt.
Sometimes, the presence of greatness feels heavy.
This year, the Mets have lightened things up, bonding through basketball.
The basketball hoop has provided entertainment and opened the door for young players to engage with veterans. It’s been popular with players of all levels, languages and backgrounds, which is exactly what Francisco Lindor envisioned when he asked the clubhouse staff to hang it up.
“I think it’s a good way of getting people to play and get to know each other,” Lindor said. “I just want people to have fun.”
Lindor does not call himself a basketball fan and he never played the game growing up in Puerto Rico (“Never have, never will,” he said). But a basketball hoop made sense given the space in the clubhouse.
It hangs above a large opening to the equipment room, a few feet away from Lindor’s locker. Just about everyone passes by that spot at some point throughout the day, making it easy for Lindor to pass a ball to a passerby.
Intense games of H-O-R-S-E have attracted crowds — large ones before the Mets made cuts three weeks into camp. Coaches and staffers have gotten in on the action as well. All are welcome to take some shots, bank some shots and lob some friendly jabs.
“It was one of the easiest things to do,” Lindor said. “A full table is too much, but a hoop is fine. A small ball is going to be much easier, and it’s much easier than putting something on the ground because there are too many people around.”
Clubhouse games aren’t exactly a rarity, but table games like pool or ping pong are typically more common. The Citi Field home clubhouse features both, as well as a shuffleboard table and in the past, a nerf hoop.
But activities like this are sometimes considered big-league luxuries. They aren’t often found in clubhouses at the lower levels of the minor leagues, including the Clover Park clubhouse, which is home to a High-A team most of the year.
Eight extra lockers were added to accommodate the extra players in camp, so a table game would have required removing the coffee table that sits in the communal area of the clubhouse. The coffee table serves a purpose as well, as the site of card games, cribbage and chess.
Left-hander Sean Manaea contributed the chess set this spring. Right-handed reliever Adam Ottavino, long known to be a cerebral pitcher, has, unsurprisingly been one of the more successful chess players in the clubhouse. Others include relievers Grant Hartwig and Phil Bickford.
Those who don’t know the rules and strategies can be tutored by Manaea or Pete Alonso.
“I grew up playing chess,” Alonso said. “I play chess with my grandpa all the time, so my overall lifetime record isn’t very good because he absolutely crushes me, but it’s fun. I love my chess.”
Chess and cards are more interesting to some players, but for many, it’s easier to pick up a basketball and shoot than sit down to play an entire game, and it requires much less strategizing.
The big league clubhouse can be intimidating for young players, especially first-timers. Connections between players at the lower levels aren’t always as strong. There are language barriers, short seasons and players moving up and down levels and coming in and out of the clubhouse. High-A is where the bonds start to strengthen; Double-A and Triple-A are when they start to solidify.
Pickup games and shooting challenges have lessened the intimidation factor while also giving the young players a preview of some of the privileges afforded to Major Leaguers.
“I think it’s really important to be in a clubhouse where everybody is just getting along and kind of playing around and playing games,” Williams said. “I feel like that goes a long way.”
Williams is ultra-confident for being only 20 years old. He had no problem taking Lindor up on the offer to shoot around and no problem engaging the veterans either. As Williams became more comfortable, so too did other young players, like outfielder Drew Gilbert, who was acquired in the Verlander trade last summer.
“Lindor doesn’t like to lose to me,” Gilbert said while eying the shortstop.
Lindor later beat Gilbert, hitting three shots before the 23-year-old prospect could.
“He crushed me,” Gilbert said, changing his tune.
Mark Vientos hasn’t been shy about his abilities, boldly declaring himself the best shooter on the team. As a child, Vientos thought basketball was more fun than baseball, but his dad, a Mets fan, urged him to play baseball. His love of basketball has mostly been limited to Miami Heat games until this spring. The discovery was exciting for a competitive guy like Vientos, to say the least.
“I love it,” Vientos said after a pickup game with Brett Baty. “Instead of sitting at my locker on my phone, I can go play basketball and interact with my teammates.
We have fun and talk trash to each other instead of sitting on our phones.”
The best trash-talker? Vientos also took that title for himself.
There’s no real way to determine the best basketball player on the Mets. Lindor’s shot has steadily improved this spring. Some players think the tall pitchers have an advantage, while some of them complained about a large light fixture getting in the way of their high, arcing shots.
According to Alonso, Jeff McNeil has talked a big game but it’s only talk.
“Jeff says he has a good shot,” Alonso said. “But it’s broken.”
Trayce Thompson, the brother of Warriors star Klay Thompson and the son of 13-year NBA veteran Mychal Thompson, would be the obvious pick. But Thompson, who is in camp as a non-roster invitee, isn’t going anywhere near that hoop.
“I have not touched a ball in there — that’s a lose-lose situation,” he said. “I don’t even think about it.”
The addition of the basketball hoop shows a shift in team leadership. Lindor, Alonso and Brandon Nimmo have always been important members of the leadership group, but their roles have grown without Scherzer and Verlander. We saw this a few weeks ago when Nimmo and his wife, Chelsea, planned a mini golf outing for the entire team and staff at Popstroke, taking over for Scherzer and his wife, who previously hosted the Mets spring party.
The Mets hoped Verlander’s influence would have a wide reach, but he was somewhat detached from the rest of the team. He was much older than most of his teammates and spent the first month of the season away from the team with a shoulder injury.
Verlander and Scherzer were both gone by the time the trade deadline rolled around. It was Alonso and Nimmo, two of the longest-tenured Mets in the clubhouse, who took accountability for a disappointing season. It was Ottavino who helped guide young pitchers through challenging parts of the 2023 season.
And it was Lindor who stood in front of his locker after every loss last season. It was also Lindor who invited Vientos and Baty to train with him over the winter in Florida. It should come as no surprise that he challenged young players like Williams, Gilbert and Luisangel Acuña to pick up games before they were reassigned to the minor league clubhouse.
Small things can make a huge difference when it comes to leadership. In this case, it’s a basketball small enough for the hands of a big-time prospect like Williams.
“I know it sounds a little silly, but it’s good for camaraderie,” Alonso said. “It’s good for competition other than baseball. It’s really nice that guys get a chance to feel comfortable and welcomed. We know what time work is, and we know when it’s time to kind of just relax in between some of those dull moments.”