NY Mets: A 2017 tweet has fans dreaming of Carlos Correa in Flushing

Early on Friday morning, I saw a tweet making the rounds among New York Mets fans. I didn’t look at the date at first. What caught my eye were the names involved.

MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez was a very popular man with this tweet resurfacing from all the way back from March of 2017. Eager Mets fans hoping for some big splashes this winter have begun to dream about the possibilities.

Why Mets fans can only dream of Carlos Correa

At the time of this tweet, Francisco Lindor, Javier Baez, and Carlos Correa were in the infancy of their major league careers. Baez was fresh off of winning a World Series against Lindor the autumn prior. Buzzer or not, Correa was bound to do the same in a couple of months.

More than four years later, the tweet announcing the infield alignment for Team Puerto Rico has awakened. Mets fans have raised the bar for what they hope this club does in the offseason. Unfortunately, you’ve raised it so high that even my weak ankles can limbo under it.

Without even going into all of the places where Correa will be a fit, we need to remember the more important reason as to why the Mets won’t be shopping for big names at the hot corner this winter. They already have two amazing prospects they’re incredibly high on.

Brett Baty and Mark Vientos are the pair of third base prospects making a name for themselves in the minors. One will eventually get the chance to start their regularly with the other set to land somewhere else on the diamond or in North America—let’s not rule out a trade to the Toronto Blue Jays.

Baty finished his 2021 season in Double-A with Vientos swatting baseballs in Triple-A. It’s reasonable to expect Vientos to be MLB-ready by midseason in 2022 with Baty not far behind. I would guess the Mets go with a short-term plan at the position to start the 2022 season. This could mean J.D. Davis or Jeff McNeil get the spot in the interim or they look elsewhere to find next season’s version of Jonathan Villar. Heck, another year of Villar would be perfect.

Equally as huge is how unlikely the Mets are to shop for free agents with the qualifying offer attached to them. They were able to do this last offseason because they were the team picking tenth in the draft which meant there was no loss of a pick. This year, barring a further collapse and a nice rise from some teams right behind them, they’ll fall outside of the top ten.

Another fact for some reasonable doubt: would the Mets really have four $20+ infielders? Let’s not forget Robinson Cano is coming back and at the very least on the books.

Want your voice heard? Join the Rising Apple team!

Write for us!

Those dreams of sugar plum fairies, gumdrops, and a 2017 Team Puerto Rico infield dancing in your head will have to stay there.