JUPITER, Fla. -- Francisco Lindor, who played hurt last season and still played almost every game the Mets did, had already been in the batting cage at Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium before the team bus from Port St. Lucie pulled up next to the visitors' clubhouse behind left field. As always with Lindor, at 10:30 in the morning, there was an air about him that he was a kid getting ready for his first game in Little League. A kid who just turned 30.

Lindor is the switch-hitting shortstop who ended up playing 160 games for the Mets last season with nearly 700 plate appearances, hitting 31 homers, stealing 31 bases, scoring 108 runs and knocking in 98. The 2023 Mets were a disappointment, everybody knows that. Lindor sure was not.

He signed a 10-year, $341 million contract with the Mets a couple of years ago. Last season, you could see how fully he accepted the responsibilities of that, producing nearly 100 RBIs and recording the club's sixth 30-30 campaign, even though he played through a bone spur in his right elbow that he had surgically removed when the season was over.

He was asked then, on his way to a very brief stop in the clubhouse before heading out to the field for batting practice with the rest of the Mets who had made the trip down from Port St. Lucie, if he believes at this stage of his career that his best baseball might still be ahead of him.

Lindor’s face, so often and so famously featuring a smile when he is on a ballfield, suddenly turned serious as he stopped to answer the question.

“One-hundred percent,” he said. “One. Hundred. Percent.”

Then, he listed some current players who had won MVP Awards after their 30th birthdays. Aaron Judge did it for the Yankees in 2022. Freddie Freeman did it for the Braves in '20. Paul Goldschmidt, who would be batting second for the Cardinals in a couple of hours on the field behind Lindor, turned 35 a month before he won the National League MVP Award two years ago.

“I look at players like that,” said Lindor, always such a serious student of this game. “I see the way so many are playing at a high level after they turn 30. It’s why I continue to learn, continue to work and continue to want to be there for my team every single day that I can.”

All he needs for inspiration is to look across the infield at his first baseman, Pete Alonso. Alonso got hit by a pitch (the Mets get hit by a lot of pitches, you may have heard) on his left wrist last season. He would end up missing eight games in all for the year. It was a lot for Alonso. He came up to the big leagues in 2019. Since then, he has missed a grand total of 24 games. His and Lindor’s former manager, Buck Showalter, had an expression that both Alonso and Lindor still use frequently: Posting up. Buck meant showing up. Lindor played through a sore throwing elbow. Alonso came back too soon after getting hit on the wrist. They both kept showing up.

Even in a down year for the Mets, Lindor ended up finishing ninth in the MVP voting, same as he had the year before when the Mets won 101 games and he hit 26 homers and knocked in 107. He has every right to believe his best baseball really might be ahead of him. He is about to begin his 10th season of Major League Baseball. He knocked in more than 100 runs for the first time in his eighth year, then he nearly did it again in 2023. And he is still a streak of light on the bases and in the field.

There has been a lot of change with the Mets since the team made the trade for him with Cleveland. Brodie Van Wagenen was running baseball operations for the Mets when Lindor got to New York, then it was Billy Eppler, now David Stearns. Luis Rojas was his first manager with the Mets, then Buck, now Carlos Mendoza. Through it all, Lindor continues to be one of the elite shortstops in the entire sport.

Truly, the only shortstop demonstrably better than Lindor a year ago -- even though it got lost in sometimes outrageous bad fortune for the Mets -- was Corey Seager. But as great as Seager was, he missed 43 games for the Rangers. Lindor missed two. And Lindor had a much better year than you think. And he is exactly the player the Mets thought they were getting.

“New York feels like home now,” Lindor said outside the Mets' clubhouse. In a little while, he would stand next to the batting cage and sound like a cheerleader as Alonso launched balls out of the ballpark.

“I continue to appreciate my teammates, and my time in New York, and the opportunity I have been given," said Lindor.

He smiled a Lindor smile, his baseball day about to begin in earnest as soon as he was out on the field.

“I’m still a kid from Puerto Rico getting to live out my dream,” Lindor said. “Who’d ever want to take a day off from doing that?”

He’s right, of course. One. Hundred. Percent.