Dodgers are great, but NYC will take MLB's center stage in 2025

This isn¡¯t to suggest that the Yankees, who look like the class of the American League again, are about to roll through the league and through the season the way Joe Torre¡¯s Yankees once did. Nor is it to suggest that the Mets of 2025, with Francisco Lindor and Juan Soto up there at the top of the batting order, are set to own New York the way the Mets of 1986 once did. There are no guarantees -- even with the Yankees coming off their first World Series appearance since 2009 and with the Mets having played the eventual champion Dodgers even better in October than the Yankees did -- that this season will be better than last season for both of them.

No. This is just about the talent that has been assembled in New York for the upcoming baseball season, because there has never been this much collective talent for the Yankees and the Mets, not at the same time.

Think about it:

The Yankees have reigning MVP Aaron Judge, who hit 58 home runs last season and came that close to being the first New York slugger in history to hit 60 homers in a season twice. They have Gerrit Cole, who finally won a Cy Young Award the season before last, and has been one of the true aces in the sport for a long time. They just signed free agent Max Fried to the biggest contract any left-handed pitcher has ever signed.

In addition, the Yankees now have one of the game¡¯s star closers in Devin Williams -- Williams now getting the chance to bring that Airbender pitch of his from Milwaukee to Yankee Stadium, and perhaps give the Yankees their best 9^th-inning option since Mariano Rivera.

The Yankees also will have two other former MVPs in their regular lineup in addition to Judge with Cody Bellinger and Paul Goldschmidt, both veterans showing up at The Stadium with much to prove. They have lost a lot in losing Soto, of course, but may come out of that an even more complete team. And maybe this is the season when The Martian, Jasson Dom¨ªnguez, becomes the hot kid people have been expecting him to be for a while, even though he is still just 22.

And on the other side of town? The Mets sure do add Soto, in his prime, after he had the best season of his career, and now put him behind Francisco Lindor, coming off one of the most complete seasons in his own career, one that saw him end up second behind Shohei Ohtani in the National League MVP voting. Lindor went to leadoff for manager Carlos Mendoza in May, and before long the Mets were turning their season around after starting 22-33, and it was like a switch being thrown, both for Lindor and for the Mets. He is their team leader, and a switch-hitting shortstop, and the best all-around player the Mets really have ever had.

He is all that, and he is still playing with Pete Alonso. Once Judge was the one setting the all-time rookie home run record, hitting 52 for the Yankees in 2017. It lasted until Alonso showed up at Citi Field and hit 53 in 2019. The other day Alonso spoke of how happy he was to be remaining a Met now that he has signed a new contract.

¡°A really special place,¡± is the way Alonso described the organization.

He and Judge still give New York the two players who have hit the most home runs since Alonso was a rookie in ¡¯19. But the special place in baseball is New York, because of the talent in the room. Or both rooms, in this case.

So the Mets have Lindor and Soto, both MVP runners-up last season. They have Alonso, who hit 34 homers in a down season for him, and a former batting champ in Jeff McNeil at second base (the Yankees still have DJ LeMahieu, another former batting champ) and Mark Vientos, a rookie star last season, at third. They have an exciting kid catcher in Francisco Alvarez and they still have the trumpet guy, Edwin D¨ªaz, as their closer. From the time they were 11 games under .500 last season, they were as good as anybody in baseball. And now, with Soto, and even with the concerns about their starting pitching, they think they can get better.

The Yankees, even without Soto, are one of the most interesting teams anywhere. They believe they are going to win the AL East again. The Mets surely have their sights on being back on top in the NL East. It doesn¡¯t mean they will make it there. But the presence of Soto alone, coming off what we saw from the Mets over the last five months, makes them as compelling a story as there is in the big leagues.

The Dodgers are loaded again, absolutely, having now added former Cy Young winner Blake Snell to a world championship team, and Japanese star Roki Sasaki to a team that at some point will get Shohei Ohtani back as a starter. It still won¡¯t make LA any more of a star town in baseball than New York. Sound the trumpets and play the season. The Yankees and Mets will worry about the Dodgers later.