If you found yourself listening to WFAN at 3 a.m. on Friday, you were probably hoping to kill some time on a drive or battle insomnia with some amiable chatter about this weekend's football games or our nascent basketball rivalry.
You got something much more filling, though, when Ed Coleman, the longtime Mets guy for the station, broke the news that David Wright has agreed to remain with the Mets. It was just a few days ago that there were reports of snags in the negotiations after the Mets made sure their offer of seven years in the neighborhood of $120 million was broadcast far and wide.
Wright's camp said the reports were inaccurate, but Coleman's report, which has been confirmed by others, pegged the deal at seven years and $122 million. Not sure where the inaccuracy might have been, but Wright's 2012 salary of $16 million brings the total value to $138 million.
That's just north of Johan Santana's $137.5 million contract value, something that seemed to be important to these negotiations, and it was enough to make sure that the Mets won't let another one get away. With this deal, Wright is poised to become the first Mets star ever to play his entire career with the team.
Seaver, Koosman, Strawberry, Gooden and Reyes all wound up playing somewhere else while Carter, Hernandez and Piazza were never the Mets' to begin with. By the time Wright is done, he will hold every team offensive record worth owning and be the face of the franchise in a way that they've never had in the past.
That wasn't an insignificant part of this deal. Mets fans wanted Wright to stick around because they didn't want to say goodbye to another star player at least as much as they wanted him to remain a Met because he's going to continue to put up huge numbers in 2017 and 2018.
Wright is likelier to start declining over the life of this contract, hopefully not before the Mets actually put a worthwhile team around him, but that wasn't something that seemed to play much of a role. Wright wanted to stay and, for once, Fred Wilpon made a move that will play well within his customer base.
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With Wright done, the Mets can now move on to R.A. Dickey and other things. Sandy Alderson and the team pick up a nice PR boost with Wright remaining with the team, but signing him to an extension does nothing to make the team any better in the here and now.
That massive task remains ahead of Alderson, who at least knows he doesn't have to worry about third base for the next decade. The Mets made the Wright move and there's sure to be much celebrating in Queens as a result.
Josh Alper is also a writer for Pro Football Talk. You can follow him on Twitter.
