MLB rumors: Mets’ Francisco Lindor wants apology from Robinson Cano if he returns to team

Sunday will mark the final game of Robinson Cano’s latest exile from baseball. He missed the entire 2021 season while serving a 162-game suspension after a positive test for performance-enhancing drugs last November.

That means Cano, who has two years remaining on his current contract, will be eligible to return to the Mets in 2022. If he does, Francisco Lindor believes Cano needs to take ownership of his mistakes.

According to a report from the New York Post, Lindor wants to hear Cano say he’s sorry for the actions that kept him away from the team for all of 2021.

“He probably has to apologize,” Lindor told the New York Post. “I am assuming that is what he is going to do when he comes back and just talk to the group and address the group and just be sincere and honest with himself and with us.”

But Lindor also said Cano doesn’t need to do much more than that to be accepted back into the clubhouse.

“He’s got to be honest with the group, but I know at the end of the day he’s a man, and we all make mistakes, and he’s been in the game for a long time,” Lindor said. “Most of the guys that are playing right now looked up to him when we were growing up. I was one of the guys who looked up to him and seeing him on the biggest stage doing it and then playing against him, playing with him in All-Star Games and stuff, he was always fun.”

Cano, who will turn 39 in October, was suspended for PEDs for the second time after he also failed a test in 2018, resulting in an 80-game ban while he was a member of the Seattle Mariners.

The Mets acquired Cano, along with closer Edwin Diaz, prior to the 2019 season, taking on the final five years of his 10-year, $240 million contract in the process.

Cano hit a career-low .256 with just 13 home runs in his first season with the Mets in 2019, though he finished with a .316 average and 10 home runs during the shortened 2020 season.

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Chris Ryan may be reached at cryan@njadvancemedia.com.