Later today, the New York Mets are going to have a press conference with the City of St. Lucie to announce the street address of Clover Park, the Mets Spring Training facility and home of the High-A St. Lucie Mets, in honor of Hall of Famer Mike Piazza. This is similar to how the Mets worked with the City of New York to change the address of Citi Field to 41 Seaver Way to honor Hall of Famer Tom Seaver.

With respect to Seaver, the Mets old standard for retiring player numbers was induction into the Hall of Fame wearing a Mets cap. That is why up until later this year Seaver and Piazza were the only Mets players who had their numbers retired by the team.

On that point, the Mets have changed their long held standard. At sometime during 2020, the New York Mets are going to retire Jerry Koosman‘s 36. This means an honor which belonged solely to Hall of Famers is now going to be applied to Koosman as well as other Mets whose numbers should be retired in the ensuing years like Gary Carter, Keith Hernandez, and David Wright.

While it seems like the Mets pivot on the singular honor given to Hall of Famers is a street address, it does seem like there should be more. After all, aside from Spring Training and the occasional rehab stint, St. Lucie is the domain of minor leaguers only. More to the point, driving down 31 Piazza Way is not going to be a part of attending a New York Mets game.

There’s also the matter of what happens after that. Will there be a 48 deGrom Way in Syracuse or Brooklyn one day? Really at some point, there is going to be diminishing returns on this plan. When you break it down, the only real way to honor the Hall of Famers is to build a statue in their honor.

Currently, the Mets are in the process of building one for Seaver, and there will be date when it will be installed and unveiled. While the Mets are involved in this process, they should also be making plans to build and install a Piazza statue.

It some ways it is fitting given how Seaver and Piazza combined for the last pitch in Shea Stadium, and the two of them walked out together. They also came together for the first pitch at Citi Field. Overall, these are the two giants in Mets history, and having statues for both of them make sense.

In the end, Seaver getting his statue is long overdue, and the Mets finally came to their senses and built one. With the Mets retiring numbers for other players in their history, they should now go forward and build statues for Hall of Fame players so to make them really stand out as the giants in team history. That means after Seaver’s statue is built, Piazza’s should be next.