Mets are set up to dream big despite their imperfection

They say you can’t win the World Series in December, January or February.That’s what they say, anyway. I say: If the Dodgers don’t win it all this year — and they are historically heavy favorites — then the spend-heavy, hard-hitting Mets just might. If the Mets do become champs, they won it in Steve Cohen’s ultra-modern Beverly Hills abode, his West Boca retreat, and also Pete Alonso’s private hideaway club in Tampa.

They won in a winter of private powwows bookended by two big signings, giving the Mets arguably baseball’s best lineup — and a helluva lot more than a random October chance. The early winter talks that culminated with Juan Soto’s decision to move 9 ³/₄ miles to the south and east resulted in the biggest sports contract ever, some very hard feelings among Yankee fans who never envisioned anyone of this exalted ilk leaving them (and certainly not for the Mets!), and a slight change in status among our two teams. The Yankees, history’s darlings, may always be No.1, with the game’s highest payroll, the 27 titles and the ubiquitous interlocking NY caps worn the world over.

But with one quick movement of the pen moments before the Mets staged their happiest news conference ever, Soto made the Mets more relevant than at any time in decades. Soto declared upon signing the record $765 million deal that he decided to sign in Queens partly because he saw a better future for the Mets, which, to be fair, may be a bit of a hopeful feeling.We aren’t about to proclaim the forever little brothers of the Yankees the best of the Big Apple.

Not quite yet.But they do look even better now than when Soto made that startling proclamation. That’s because two days short of two months later, the Mets made sure Soto wasn’t the greatest replacement player ever and brought back Alonso, their beloved slugging first baseman.

Unlike Soto, who has a deal that could take him into middle age, Alonso’s opt-out means he may be back for only 2025....