Mets: Weighing the pros and cons of an early Pete Alonso contract extension

Cons of extending Pete Alonso early

What could possibly go wrong with an extension? I’ll give you three names: Juan Lagares, Jon Niese, and David Wright.

To varying degrees, those three extensions all backfired on the Mets. Lagares and Niese never lived up to expectations. For Wright, it was the injury bug that bit him.

The difference with Alonso is that he’s young and has already had an amazing year. Lagares and Niese looked like fine players with a solid future. Alonso has his remarkable season. If anything, he already earned some consideration for an extension.

Wright’s extension was also anything but premature. He was already an established veteran who had the unfortunate luck of suffering too many injuries later in his career. It’s a risk every team takes whenever they sign a player.

Financially, extending Alonso early could also prevent the club from doing some more urgent moves. Michael Conforto, Marcus Stroman, and Noah Syndergaard are ahead of him on the list of players ready to reach free agency. Skipping them to reward Alonso with an extension may limit what they can do with those three.

What’s more, these men are all human. They know it’s a business, but a bad relationship could always develop as a result.

Alonso deserves all of the praise in the world for what he has done in his short time as a major leaguer. He has single-handedly helped reshape the culture around the team.

It took only one season for the Mets to become a lovable squad with a contagious appetite for winning and having fun.

The big question to answer now is what the Mets should actually do.