David Wright has been the star of the Mets this year. He is an early contender for the MVP award. He’s hitting right around .400, and he’s dominated at the plate. His fielding has looked a lot better this year too. Those are good reasons to offer him an extension now, but I think the Mets should wait. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that the Mets will extend him, but remember he also has a team option for next year. So, they really have until the end of next season to extend him. There’s plenty of time left, no need to rush it now.
There are quite a few reasons that people think that they should resign him now. One reason is because of the Jose Reyes situation that took place this past offseason. However there’s quite a few differences between the situations. One big difference is that now the Mets aren’t dealing with the Madoff situation, so they can actually afford to extend Wright. Also, Wright gives 100% all the time, and Reyes didn’t. Disagree? Wright has never been benched due to lack of effort while Reyes has. I also think Wright actually wants to be a lifetime Met, while I was never really all that sure that Reyes did. Wright is also willing to negotiate during the season, which is something that Reyes refused to do. Wright is a leader on this team, and the face of this franchise. I can’t think of a time where I ever considered Reyes either. So I highly doubt it’ll get anywhere’s close to the Reyes situation, as they are two totally different players and thus two totally different situations.
Another argument for extending him now is so they can officially name him captain and put the “C” on his chest. However, the only things that really does is put a “C” on his chest and give the executives a chance to officially name him captain. It doesn’t really change anything though. He has been the captain for a while now, and both the players and fans know this. He does need to have the “C” stitched to his chest to be a leader and captain. So rushing the extension process just to put a silly “C” on his chest makes no sense to me as it changes nothing.
Again, I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that he’ll be extended, but I realize we have a year and a half still to extend him before he’s a free agent, why do we need to rush and extend him now? Let’s let him focus on playing right now, and wait until later in the year, or even the beginning of next year to do it.
