5 times the Wilpon Family were not cheap

Wright signs largest contract in New York Mets history

Following the Bernie Madoff scandal, the Wilpons really cut back on their willingness to spend as they lost a significant amount of money. After a couple of years of some poor Mets teams, the Wilpons opened up their checkbooks once again in December of 2012 and made one of the biggest investments in a player in the history of the franchise when they gave David Wright a seven-year $122 million extension.

When you include the 1-year $16 million Wright was already owned, it made his total contract worth $500,000 more than Santanas from years prior. This was the largest contract in the history of the Mets at this time.

Not only was this a huge deal for the Mets and their fans at the time because of the lack of spending in recent years, but they also locked up the face of the franchise for the foreseeable future and did not have to worry about potentially losing him in free agency.

With Wright still having a year left on his contract at the time, his extension did not technically kick in until 2014. Unfortunately for the Mets and Wright, he was bitten by the injury bug like many other Mets and was never the David Wright everyone expected him to be.

In terms of getting what you paid for and the money being "worth it", the saving grace for the Wilpons here was the insurance plan they took out on Wright's contract. Extending him and spending the money was no doubt worth it at the time. He had only missed a significant amount of games once in his career at that point and he was the face of the franchise.