Syracuse, N.Y. -- A new era of baseball will begin in Syracuse in 2019, leaving behind a nickname that has been associated with the sport in the city since 1934.

The New York Mets announced on Tuesday that the Syracuse Chiefs are becoming the Syracuse Mets. The Mets purchased the team last year and will put its Triple-A players on the field of NBT Bank Stadium starting next spring.

Slapping the Mets moniker on Syracuse in 2018 wouldn't have been appropriate because it was the final season of the franchise's player development contract with the Washington Nationals. The notion of Nationals prospects playing in uniforms with a Mets logo would have been awkward, to say the least.

The Mets had hoped that the change would be a surprise but New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced in his 2018 State of the State address that Syracuse would be the Mets in 2019.

Syracuse's baseball teams have been called the Chiefs every season since 1934, with the exception of a period from 1997 to 2006 when the team was the Syracuse SkyChiefs and affiliated with the Toronto Blue Jays.

While traditionalists may not like the name change, such sentiment now takes a distant back seat in these decisions. The Mets want a fresh, new look in 2019 to juice merchandise sales and fuel excitement. Changing names and logos is part of the takeover, especially since New York owns the franchise.

The Mets are also gambling that baseball fans in Syracuse will get behind forming a strong geographical loyalty to the major league club instead of clinging to decades of local identity.