After what seems like one of the longest offseasons in baseball history, today, February 22, 2020, the New York Mets are finally playing a baseball game. Actually, they are playing two games with their split squads playing against the St. Louis Cardinals and Miami Marlins.

The focus isn’t on the Astros sign stealing, and how the Mets opted to fire Carlos Beltran while simultaneously keeping J.D. Davis and Jake Marisnick despite their own involvement in the scandal. Instead, the focus goes to Luis Rojas‘ first year as the manager of the Mets, and how the rotation and bullpen are going to hold up in the Mets hopes of winning a World Series for the first time since 1986.

Rick Porcello, who the Mets desperately need to have a bounceback year, takes the mound against the Marlins. Marcus Stroman, who is already being looked upon as a dark horse Cy Young candidate, will start against the Cardinals.

From there, we will look at whether Steven Matz can build off of his strong second half. In terms of the bullpen, all eyes will be on Dellin Betances‘ ability to rebound and whether the nasty splitter Jeurys Familia used against Jeff McNeil will appear during the season.

Overall, the 2020 Mets are playing games now, and the focus is going to be one how this team will improve from 2019, and whether this team truly is a World Series contender. That is a more fun and interesting discussion than what we have been having all offseason.

Baseball is back. Well, almost. In any event, it is great having baseball games back, and soon, we will have real baseball being played. When the game is being played, everything is better. Things are even better when the Mets are good. Soon, we will find out if they really are.