For any baseball fans looking to watch some live games before spring training begins later this month, the Caribbean Series just might be the thing to focus on. The tournament begins on Thursday in Venezuela as eight nations will go for the title.

While there are no current Mets major leaguers or prospects on any of the rosters that feature the champions of each country’s winter league squad, some of the names that you will see will get fans reminiscing on players who wore orange and blue in recent years.

For the host country, Venezuela (Leones Del Caracas), Wilson Ramos is one of the catchers. Ramos spent two years as the catcher in Flushing (2019-2020) and had a slash line of .276/.339/.410 with 19 home runs and 88 RBIs in 186 games.

One of the favorites, the Dominican Republic (Tigres del Licey), they are managed by a man who had a brief cup of coffee with the Mets in Jose Offerman (.250/.316/.319, 1 home run, 10 RBIs in 53 games in 2005). The former outfielder will get to manage Robinson Cano (.765 OPS, 24 HR, 72 RBIs in 3 years in Flushing), who has been known for having success in winter ball, especially in the Caribbean Series.

As for team Colombia (Vaqueros de Monteria), one player Mets fans will remember well is former infielder Dilson Herrera. Once a top prospect in the Mets organization, Herrera only played 49 games for the Mets in 2014-2015 (.215/.308/.383, 6 HR, 17 RBIs) before being traded to the Reds for Jay Bruce in August 2016. Colombia will look to try to repeat their title run from a year ago.

Here are the teams participating and players with Mets ties on their roster:

Mexico

Colombia

Panama

  • No Mets ties

Cuba

  • No Mets ties

Puerto Rico

Dominican Republic

Venezuela

Curacao

  • LHP Nelmerson Xavier Mariano Silvano Angela
  • OF Roger Bernadina

Mets prospect Ronny Mauricio has decided to not play in the series after a full season in the minors and playing a full schedule during the Dominican Winter League regular and postseason for the champion Tigres del Licey. Mauricio, recently ranked as the No. 56 prospect in baseball by ESPN, was the regular season LIDOM MVP when he hit .287/.335/.468 in 46 games.

The games will be split between two stadiums including the picturesque Estadio de La Rinconada.

The games start today at 9:30 a.m. ET when Cuba takes on Curacao. The eight countries will play a round-robin format and then the top four will meet in the semifinals a week from today (February 9) with the champion being crowned on February 10.

This year, ESPN+ along with ESPN Deportes will have coverage of every single game during the series. If you are looking to get your international baseball fix before the World Baseball Classic next month, this might be the event for you to see some high-stakes baseball and a lot of emotion all at the same time.