The Mets tried to persuade Ronny Mauricio to skip winter ball this offseason or at the very least to wait until January before he started playing.

But a significant factor (and perhaps the largest) in the 22-year-old infielder’s ultimately painful decision to return to the Dominican Winter League, where he had previously earned MVP honors, was monetary.

Mauricio is struggling financially, according to sources, and needed the income. One source estimated that a player of Mauricio’s stature who had excelled so much for his team, Licey, was capable of commanding at least $20,000 monthly playing winter ball in the Dominican.

Mauricio received a $2.1 million signing bonus from the Mets as a 16-year-old that at the time was the largest given by the organization to an international free agent. But Mauricio never saw much, if any, of that money, according to sources, due to an agent and unscrupulous family member to whom the player gave control of his finances.