David Lennon: Steve Cohen's 'no captain' policy for Mets quashes any lingering controversy

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- There have been four team captains in Mets’ history, the most recent being David Wright, who called it quits at the end of the 2018 season and had his No. 5 raised to the Citi Field rafters last July.

But now the Mets’ proverbial C -- also bestowed on Gary Carter, Keith Hernandez and John Franco -- is being retired as well, or at least under tenure of owner Steve Cohen.

After increasing chatter in recent years that Francisco Lindor, the $341 million cornerstone of Cohen’s early rebranding of the Mets, would be next in line to take the captain’s title, the owner flatly quashed that speculation Monday in no uncertain terms.

“As long as I’m owning the team, there will never be a team captain,” Cohen said during a wide-ranging, 23-minute session with reporters at Clover Park. “That was my decision.”

Cohen spoke on a variety of subjects, but this particular topic was especially poignant, given the winter overhaul of the roster, the smashing of the Mets’ longtime core and the offseason noise involving clubhouse chemistry issues. While Cohen insisted Monday that his stance was not new, he’s owned the team since November of 2020, yet never previously expressed this mandate.

The timing, however, was brilliant.

In one fell swoop, Cohen instantly disarmed any further public debate about who should succeed Wright in the captain’s role -- and by doing so, took the divisive issue off the table permanently for his administration.

SEE PHOTOSPhotos: Mets spring training

Full disclosure: A year ago, right around this same time in spring training, I wrote a column suggesting why Lindor deserved to be named captain, fueled in part by his MVP performance during the Mets’ magical 2024 run to the NLCS. I mentioned how “Lindor’s unique blend of skill, heart and charisma is unrivaled since Wright’s 2018 retirement.”

That’s still a valid statement. Maybe handing the C to Lindor back then would have caused problems with longer-tenured homegrown Mets, like Brandon Nimmo, but it’s hard to believe last season could have gone much worse, regardless of whether there was a captain or not.

Either way, we know now that the ’25 clubhouse had issues -- both manager Carlos Mendoza and Juan Soto copped to those claims the other day -- and David Stearns made Nimmo the first casualty of his housecleaning project by shipping him to Texas before Thanksgiving. As for the murmurs of friction between Lindor and Soto, the $765 million outfielder took a lightly veiled shot at the shortstop’s bid for the C in August when he told the New York Post that Starling Marte was the team’s leader and felt like the captain.

By then it became clear this whole captaincy thing could be a problem, and the longer the speculation festered, the more damaging to the Mets’ immediate future. Still, no one had stepped up to stop this problem from snowballing until Cohen was asked a question about the vacancy and promptly put an end to the discussion.

“Just my own views on how I want a locker room to be,” Cohen explained. “My view is, every year the team’s different and 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. Whatever previous ownership did it, that was their way of doing things. I look at things differently.”

As of now, only two MLB teams currently have captains. Hal Steinbrenner made Aaron Judge the 16th captain in Yankees history -- and first since Derek Jeter’s retirement in 2014 -- when the three-time MVP signed his nine-year, $360 million contract in late December of 2022. The Royals appointed Salvador Perez, who became the franchise’s fourth captain, on the eve of the 2023 season opener.

It’s an antiquated concept, largely ceremonial and without any tangible gravitas from an organizational standpoint. Also, probably more trouble than it’s worth, which is likely why 28 teams choose to forgo giving anyone such a title. Judge and Perez are safe picks because there’s practically zero chance they won’t finish their careers with their respective teams. How many other players can we confidently say that about?

“Since I’ve been in this chair, we’ve been pretty consistent with the captains, right?” Mendoza said Monday. “And there’s a reason why we haven’t named one. I think when you’re talking about a major league locker room, you need to have not only one guy, but a few guys. That’s what makes teams great. So it’s nothing new for us.”

Even so, the Mets have been asked about the subject in the past and nobody specifically cited this policy before Cohen dropped the hammer during Monday’s chat. Lindor certainly entertained the possibility when it was brought up with him over the past year, but we didn’t get the chance to gauge his feelings Monday -- he already had left when the clubhouse re-opened to the media following the team’s first full-squad workout of the spring.

Lindor was out on the field Monday -- despite wearing a cast nearly up to his left elbow from the hamate surgery -- and chatted up his new double-play partner Marcus Semien during cut-off drills at second base. Semien was considered the de facto captain of the Rangers during their World Series title run in 2023, and those leadership capabilities should help the retooled Mets forge a more productive clubhouse identity going forward.

But it’s way too early to tell how this group will function together. What Cohen accomplished Monday, however, was eliminating a potential pothole down the road. The idea of naming a captain seemingly had become a polarizing concept among the Mets, and now it’s gone. Cohen made sure the only capital C belongs to him.

By David Lennon

dave.lennon@newsday.comDPLennon

David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.