The Mets New 2019 AAA Affilate - The Syracuse Mets
The Syracuse Mets have a long history, formerly known as the Chiefs for majority of that time, with a ten year period being known as the Sky Chiefs. The team dates back to 1936, when they moved from Jersey City New Jersey, as the Skeeters upstate to Syracuse as the minor league club of the Boston Redsox.
From 1957 to 1961 there was no team at Syracuse, as two different teams with the name left town. Then after the Montreal Royals, the long time affiliate of the Brooklyn Dodgers was abandon, it moved south to become the Syracuse Chiefs once again. Thru the years, 13 different teams have been affiliated with Syracuse along the way, most recently the Washington Nationals from 2009-2018. Before that the Toronto Blue Jays had the longest run with AA baseball in Syracuse, a good twenty years from their inception 1978 to 2008. Many of those Blue Jays who won back to back World Series in 1992 & 1993 came through Syracuse. In 2017 The New York Mets announced they had purchased the club & it would be there AAA team by 2019.
The newly named Mets will don the Mets orange & blue colors as well. They will play at NBT Bank Stadium, a 11071 seat facility in Onondaga County. The stadium has also hosted concerts, hockey & soccer. The facility has luxury boxes, a banquet room named after former MLB Player Hank Sauer & a state of the art scoreboard.
The 2019 Syracuse Mets will feature Peter Alonso as its star player, the top ranked Mets prospect. The club announced Tony DeFrancesco as its manager, with pitching coach Glen Abbot & Joel Chimelis as its hitting coach. The bench coach is Benny Distefano.