LOS ANGELES – Francisco Lindor was the early cornerstone of Steve Cohen’s rebuilding effort in Flushing, a record-breaking $341 million investment in what the mega-billionaire owner envisioned as the future of the Mets’ championship.

Four years later, Lindor stood in the visitors clubhouse at Dodger Stadium, where the Mets’ dream died Sunday night on the cusp of the World Series, and spoke confidently about the franchise’s future.

The Mets’ MVP, and almost certainly the NL’s number two behind Shohei Ohtani, cautioned against taking this season’s success for granted. But Lindor also had no doubt that Cohen and president of baseball operations David Stearns would make these deep playoff runs more of an annual event than an OMG-powered comet that burned bright before dying out in late October.

“I’m sure they will put an extreme amount of energy and effort into improving the organization this offseason, and the players should do the same,” Lindor said. “The players have to keep working as hard as possible, myself included. I will push myself to be in a much better place next year.

“That said, nothing is promised in this match. I don’t care who you are. I don’t care how good you are. Nothing is promised. So next year you have to compete and you can’t take anything for granted. I know that’s one of the things this group did. We held each other accountable and pushed each other to the limit. If we do that next year, we’ll see where we end up.”

That Lindor – who has come into his own as the Mets’ unofficial captain – could lend a voice to this successful concept is encouraging for the clubhouse atmosphere going forward. The Mets enter the winter with 11 free agents, which is more than a quarter of their 40-man roster, including three-fifths of their rotation: Luis Severino, Jose Quintana and Sean Manaea (he will certainly exercise his 2025 option). out).

That positional list includes domestic slugger Pete Alonso, spiritual leader (and spark plug) Jose Iglesias, deadline import Jesse Winker, hitting whisperer J.D. Martinez and defensive wizard Harrison Bader. Out of the bullpen, playoff hero Ryne Stanek and left-handed specialist Brooks Raley are the headliners.

It’s a big chunk of talent, heart and commitment, but I think the Mets will cut ties with a few key parts of their 2024 winning DNA as Cohen and Stearns step up their big game hunting in the coming months. Remember, Stearns’ first year at the helm was supposed to be a transitional season, a chance to evaluate the Mets as a whole, from the farm system to Flushing, while putting together a long-term contender with little additional spending (Cohen wanted the keep MLB’s most expensive payroll in check at $350 million).

Much to Cohen’s delight, Stearns was able to not only perform a full diagnostic check on the Mets, but also take them to the NLCS by finding the right complementary pieces that stayed with the existing core. That wasn’t luck. Stearns did the same, on a much tighter budget, turning the small-town Brewers into a consistent playoff threat before coming to Queens. Now armed with Cohen’s checkbook and over $160 million of payroll (shoutout to Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander), Stearns can build more of his own blueprint for 2025, with a now proven manager in Carlos Mendoza and strong backs like Lindor and Brandon Nimmo has already established himself in leadership roles.

Nimmo, the longest-running Met, is now on its sixth manager (if you count Carlos Beltran’s 10-week stint) and Stearns is the sixth head of baseball operations during that same turbulent period. But Nimmo believes this time is different, even after experiencing the glimmer of hope from the 101 team in 2022 that proved to be fool’s gold in the wake of that year’s Wild Card Series loss to the Padres.

“We have everyone we need to do this job and get the job done,” Nimmo said late Sunday night. “We have the right people and it will be good to have some stability. I know we have a lot of free agents, and players will come in and out. But to have some stability in the front office, and to have some stability from the top down, it will be very helpful.

“We know the core. We know the front office. We know who is in charge. We know what standards we are setting now.”

When you hear Nimmo outline these things, it sounds simple enough. But historically, the “stability” he talks about is an elusive concept on Seaver Way. And it really took Cohen’s purchase of the Mets, followed by his long-awaited hiring of Stearns, to finally put them on this trajectory.

Just because you’re going to the NLCS in October doesn’t mean it will continue to happen every year. And now that Cohen is ready to show his financial strength again, we probably won’t see another Cinderella season like this for a while. But the Mets’ transformation into a perennial NL East powerhouse is now ahead of schedule, and what they’ve been able to do this season — culminating in a memorable October — only confirmed that timeline.

“We already have a culture here,” Lindor said. “We have set a precedent. And the precedent doesn’t go that deep in the postseason. The precedent is that you have to be a good person. You have to be accountable. You have to respect the decisions the front office makes. You have to respect everyone’s opinion here. That’s the culture we’ve established. We just have to stick to that.”

The Mets did not win the NL pennant. But they still planted their flag across the baseball landscape this year, with bigger goals ahead.

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