The Mets have endless questions to answer whenever the lockout ceases and the team can focus on producing on the field. One of those questions, which reasonably has sat on the backburner as the Mets sort out their roster, is what Robinson Canó will bring to the table in 2022.

After missing the entire 2021 season due to testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs for a second time, Canó will play this season at age 39. He’s under contract for his age-40 season, too. Is it fair to expect anything at all from Canó? With the way the Mets filled out their roster pre-lockout, it seems they’re not even going to ask Canó to have any significant role in the offense. They have a glut of players who can play second base and designated hitter, all of who’d be better choices than Canó at this point. (Jeff McNeil, Eduardo Escobar, J.D. Davis and Dominic Smith, to name a few.)

However, they’re going to pay him close to $20 million, so they’re at least going to see what they have. Spring training will be the place the team sees what they have up close, with their own machines and data to pull from as he works his way back into major-league shape (if that’s even attainable after not playing for a year at the age he’s at).

But until spring training actually starts, fans (and the front office, I’m sure) have been keeping an eye on Canó through his play in the Dominican Republic this winter.

Canó played in 10 games with Estrellas Orientales of the Dominican Winter League, notching 43 plate appearances in those regular season games. (He missed a bulk of the regular season due to lingering injuries.) He had just one extra-base hit–a double–in those 43 plate appearances to go along with 11 singles and two walks. This all resulted in a paltry .625 OPS. A home run finally sprung off Canó’s bat on a middle-middle fastball in the playoffs in the Estrellas’ only Winter League finals win.

Canó isn’t done playing for the winter after the Dominican Winter League, though, as he’s playing now for the Domincan Republic’s team in the Caribbean Series. (The Dominican Republic’s team is actually the team that beat Canó’s in the Winter League playoffs–Gigantes del Ciabo.)

We led the morning briefing today with Canó’s game-winning hit in the first game of the Caribbean Series on Friday night. He continued a hot start Saturday with a 2-for-4 game with three RBI. That brings his Caribbean Series totals to 4-for-7 with five RBI. One of those four hits was a triple to the left-center field gap after a misplay by the centerfielder.

Gigantes del Ciabo play three more games–Sunday through Tuesday–before the knockout round, and Canó will likely get run in all three. Then he and his teama may have a shot at a couple more games in the knockout round.

It’s going to take a lot of work for Canó to make an impact on the 2022 iteration of the Mets. He’s going to need to produce some level of power if he’s going to make an impact at all. We’ll see if the work he’s done over 15-20 games in the Dominican Republic will rid his spring training of any excuses that he needs to get his bat back up to speed. But if the overall results in the Dominican are an indication of where Canó’s power is at now for good, the Mets will have to start rethinking rostering Canó at all in 2022.