It’s official. Buck Showalter will be the New York Mets manager next season.

This offseason did not start well for the Mets with Noah Syndergaard leaving for Los Angeles, and Steven Matz opting for St. Louis. All signs were pointing to disaster as the Amazins began to circle the drain, already ceding the division before a pitch had been thrown. And then, Mets owner Steven Cohen got angry, really angry.

The Mets went on a rampage signing Starling Marte, Mark Canha, and Eduardo Escobar all in a 24-hour span. It was a whirlwind of a day that could only be topped by an acquisition that felt otherworldly. Surely there is no way in hell the Mets could land Max Scherzer, right? Wrong. Coming to Queens on a record-breaking three-year deal, Scherzer is now a Met. Wild, wild stuff. But the Mets still needed a manager, and Buck Showalter is just the man for the job.

That’s right. Buck Showalter is the perfect manager for this new era in New York Mets history.

Since Terry Collins left the post in 2017, the Mets have tried to find a manager who could grow with their young roster and build a potential dynasty at Citi Field. Mickey Callaway had the resume to succeed with a stable of thoroughbred pitchers, but could not find any kind of consistency, except when it came to being horrible towards women in the Mets organization.

After Callaway’s dismissal, the Mets came to a short-lived agreement with the legendary Carlos Beltran. That relationship crumbled after his connection to the creation of the Houston Astros sign-stealing system was discovered. A scramble to fill the manager’s job led the Mets to Luis Rojas, who benefited from an absence of expectation in his first year at the helm. Unfortunately, those expectations would exceed his 2021 season results, and Rojas was relieved of his duties. And now, after four years of “trying something new”, Buck Showalter steps into the Manager’s office.

The Mets are at a crossroads. One direction is another year of figuring out how to keep competitive in the NL East, all the while growing their farm system for the future. Or, take the road less traveled and push your chips in with a manager who doesn’t suffer fools and has the experience of bringing teams to the postseason.

That’s what Buck offers the New York Mets as their manager. Experience, grit, and the ability to manage teams that live up to their potential.

Consider this. The Mets have a rotation that boasts two of the greatest National League pitchers of the last half-decade. Francisco Lindor is the highest-paid shortstop in the game and will be in Queens long after Scherzer, Showalter, and deGrom leave the Mets. Pete Alonso is a generational talent at the plate and a superstar face of the franchise on par with Piazza in the 90s and early 2000s. This team is primed and ready to run things in the NL East for the next two seasons, and Buck Showalter leaves little question as to how they’ll do that.

Old school baseball is the name of Buck’s managerial style. There’s no Don Mattingly matchup play or Joe Girardi “hot-hand” riding. Buck Showalter sticks to his game plan and plays a clean game. Does this occasionally bite him in the ass? Sure. But guess what? Rojas and Callaway have had the same issues in the past, with less pedigree for the job. Even Terry Collins made some mistakes, often on bigger stages than the others.

At the end of the day, this agreement between Buck and the Mets signals a return to normalcy. The Mets are returning to a long lost tradition in Queens: winning. And that’s a good thing, considering the potential this team has ahead of them.