In a surprising twist of events, the New York Mets signed star shortstop Carlos Correa to a 12-year deal worth $315 million, making the NL East more competitive.
As if the NL East wasn’t already competitive enough — with the third-place team making it to the World Series in 2022 — the New York Mets just signed Carlos Correa.
The Correa signing is a complete surprise considering he initially signed with the San Francisco Giants but problems arose during his physical. The Mets, however, needed the extra push if they want to be competitive with the Atlanta Braves and the Philadelphia Phillies this upcoming season.
The Mets are undoubtedly a solid team, but they’re in an extremely competitive division, which showed as they failed to clinch the division in the last week of the regular season.
They lost Jacob deGrom, but they filled the void with Justin Verlander, who is a perfect replacement. They also extended some of their best players, including Brandon Nimmo, Edwin Diaz and Adam Ottavino. Between these moves and Correa joining the team, the Mets will likely emerge strong next season.
NL East power rankings: Mets will likely have another great season
The Mets almost clinched the division in 2022, but the Braves knocked them out of the first-place spot the last week of the season. Still, it goes to show just what they’re capable of, and with some improvements, they’re bound to do even better. Here’s how I’d rank each team in the division, based on overall talent added this offseason:
- Philadelphia Phillies
- New York Mets
- Atlanta Braves
- Miami Marlins
- Washington Nationals
The Phillies get the first-place spot because of their powerful run this postseason and the fact that they’ve improved the team, even more, this offseason. Most notably, they signed Trea Turner, who will definitely help the team defensively. They kept most of their best players around too, such as Aaron Nola, Zack Wheeler, Alec Bohm, Bryson Stott, Kyle Schwarber, Brandon Marsh, Nick Castellanos and Bryce Harper.
The Mets come up second again because they’ve certainly made big signings to improve, yet they may not have enough to compare to the Phillies. It could be a tossup between the two teams and it wouldn’t be surprising if the Mets came up first, but the Phils seem to have a little bit more leverage over New York.
The Braves rank third because they haven’t splashed too big in the market yet. They lost their own star shortstop, Dansby Swanson, but haven’t replaced him and are mainly keeping around players they already have. While they do have some great players, they are at a disadvantage from losing Swanson while the Phils and Mets are at an advantage for making big moves.
The Marlins and the Nationals have both been quiet this offseason too, so it seems likely they’ll do roughly the same as the 2022 season.