Mike Puma of the New York Post reports the New York Mets are finalizing a deal to hire Joey Cora as the team’s infield and third base coach. For Cora, it’s a return.

After his 11 year playing career and one year as a minor league coach with the Chicago Cubs organization, Cora was hired by the Mets organization to manage the now defunct Kingsport Mets. In his two seasons with Kingsport, the team was 56-80.

Cora would become David Wright‘s first professional manager.In Before the Glory: 20 Baseball Heroes Talk About Growing Up and Turning Hard Times into Home Runs, authors Rich-Herschlag and Bill Staples detailed the impact Cora would have on Wright’s career.

While not oft discussed now, there were questions about Wright’s long-term ability to stay at third, questions of which Wright was well aware. Due to a mixture of Wright’s work ethic, his need to impress Cora, and his work with Cora, Wright proved the concerns were off-base, and by season’s end, Wright would be lauded for being a natural third baseman with good instincts.

This is what Cora was able to do his first year as a minor league manager. Cora likely would’ve had more of an impact with the Mets organization, but he had impressed then Mets assistant GM Omar Minaya, who brought him to the Montreal Expos organization when he was hired as their GM.

From there, Cora had a long and impactful coaching career. He was the third base coach for the 2005 World Series Champion Chicago White Sox, and he was the infield coach last year for a Pirates infield which posted a 17 DRS.

Now, Cora is right back with the Mets organization looking to have the same impact he had 20 years ago. He will also be looking to again be the third base coach of a World Series winning club.