Written by Tyler Kepner at New York Times.com
This was the test, the proving ground for the Mets as annual playoff contenders. At some point, they would have to take a risk to keep their new identity. By agreeing to a reported four-year, $110 million contract extension with Yoenis Cespedes on Tuesday, they have.
Given how desperately the Mets needed him back, the deal looks reasonable. Cespedes turned 31 last month, the same age as Albert Pujols and Robinson Cano when they scored 10-year contracts earlier this decade. Those players were changing teams and used leverage to the fullest. Cespedes never wanted to leave.
He showed that last winter, when he returned with a three-year deal that everybody knew would last only one season. As an All-Star who led the Mets back to October, Cespedes dutifully exercised his opt-out clause and entered free agency again. Yet he did not play this out deep into the winter, or force the Mets into an instantly regrettable deal.
Even so, he made out very well. Cespedes’s $27.5 million average annual salary matches the second highest ever for a major league position player, after Detroit’s Miguel Cabrera ($31 million). It is also a record for the Mets. They had to go somewhere they had never gone before, and they did.
In terms of total value, this is not the richest deal in team history. The last two that were more expensive: the eight-year, $138 million extension for David Wright, and the six-year, $137.5 million deal the Mets gave Johan Santana after trading for him in 2007. Santana and Wright were both younger at the start of those contracts than Cespedes is now, but injuries doomed Santana and haunt Wright now.
The Santana deal — and the wasted dollars spent on Jason Bay, Luis Castillo and Oliver Perez — roughly coincided with the Bernard L. Madoff scandal, which ravaged the Mets’ finances. The Wilpons drastically chopped payroll, and their forced retreat worked. Under Sandy Alderson, the Mets groomed the prospects Omar Minaya left behind, added more, and won the 2015 National League pennant.
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