For the love of circle changeups and arriving full circle, Shea Stadium is the place to be in 2008.

Assuming a new contract is reached, Johan Santana, a two-time Cy Young Award winner, will join the New York Mets rotation alongside Pedro Martinez, a three-time Cy Young Award winner and Santana’s predecessor as the best pitcher on the planet.

Santana and Martinez, with no fear of offending Trevor Hoffman, have the best changeups in baseball, and are the type of pitchers that come around, literally, once a decade. The last go-around, the Mets missed their chance.

In 1997, after Martinez won his first Cy Young Award, the Montreal Expos put him on the trading block. And for a time, Queens was believed to be a potential destination.

‘The Mets want a No. 1 starter desperately, and they are in a position to meet Martinez’s salary demands,’ wrote Buster Olney for The New York Times in November of 1997.

Ultimately the Mets, as they so often did before Omar Minaya took over as general manager, missed out on the big name. Martinez landed with the Boston Red Sox, who signed him for six years and $75 million (half of what Santana will likely receive from the Mets).

Martinez, who was 27 when he joined Boston, proceeded to put together the most dominant season ever in 2000, the same year that Santana made his major league debut. That performance came in the middle of a six-year period, from 1997 to 2002, in which Martinez’s artistry can only be compared to the accomplishments of one other ‘ Sandy Koufax, a veritable baseball deity.

The Mets, without Martinez, fell just short of a National League title in 1999, and short of a Subway Series title the next year.

From there, it was a straight decline. In 2004, as the Mets began to turn it around and avoided a repeat last place finish, Martinez began to decline ‘ he posted a 3.90 ERA. He had not finished with an ERA over 3 since 1996.

But Martinez, as the No. 2 pitcher in the rotation behind Curt Schilling, did take home his first World Series ring.

The next year, eight seasons after their initial pursuit, the Mets landed Martinez. Though his signing marked the beginning of the team’s return to relevancy, and he did post a 2.91 ERA in 2005, Martinez’s days as baseball’s best were behind him. Santana had taken the reigns.

Santana won his first Cy Young in 2004 with a 2.61 ERA and 265 strikeouts in 228 innings for the Twins. He won another in 2006.

Last season, Santana finished with a 3.33 ERA and 235 strikeouts in 219 innings ‘ numbers that he had surpassed in each of the previous three seasons, but numbers nonetheless remain a pipe dream for most other pitchers.

In 2008, now nearly a Met, Santana arrives as a 29-year-old ‘ two years older than Martinez was when he joined Boston and, potentially, two years closer to a decline.

But Santana also comes to the Mets as vindication.

He comes as the weight that pushes the NL East back in the Mets’ favor. He comes to the Mets as assurance that last season, which saw one of the worst regular season collapses in not just the team’s history, but the sport’s history, was not taken lightly.

He comes as the potential catalyst to fulfill Shea Stadium’s parting wish in its final season ‘ a fifth World Series. It could be the final season for Martinez as well, who is in the last year of his contract and has publicly discussed the possibility of retirement.

But most of all, Santana comes to Mets as the ace they sought in Martinez before the 1998 season, the one they partially landed with Martinez in 2005.

If the Mets do fall short of a World Series ‘ if Santana and Martinez can’t repeat that Schilling and Martinez magic ‘ they will have, at the least, gotten their man.