David Wright is the most recent player to hold the title of Mets captain.

One of the biggest fan favorites in franchise history, Wright played his entire 14-year career with the Mets, the team that drafted him in the first round of the 2001 MLB Draft.

Now a special advisor to COO Jeff Wilpon and general manager Brodie Van Wagenen, Wright recently spoke with Mike Puma of the New York Post, spending some time to talk about a young player who could one day don the "C" in first baseman Pete Alonso.

During Alonso's record-setting rookie season, he showed all the signs of a potential captain, from his huge production on the field to his leadership skills in the clubhouse.

Wright had a chance to see Alonso up close and personal during spring training, and while he sees the characteristics of a captain in Alonso, he cautions adding any label to the 25-year-old too soon.

"I remember unfairly where some of the veteran guys on the team, when I came up and started playing well and being accountable, these other guys had to answer the same questions," Wright told the Post. "I always apologized to them, because it's not fair to have these labels on young players on such an early part of their career."

So for now, Wright hopes that Alonso just continues to be himself, something that seemed to come so naturally during his rookie season, as Alonso seemed unfazed by all of the new attention coming his way.

"The baseball part of it speaks for itself with Pete," Wright said. "I hope that it continues to trend in that direction, because he seems like an easy guy to root for. But this is more advice than anything else. My advice is just be yourself. Be genuine, be natural and lead by example.

"Don't be the loudest guy in the room. Don't find the cameras. Be yourself and that is how you earn respect from your teammates and once you earn that respect from your teammates, that's when the type of leadership labels kind of get put on you, because people can sniff out when you are fake. And if you are trying to be somebody that you're not, it's easy to point those guys out."

Wright also admitted that he can see some of the same characteristics in Alonso that others saw in him, specifically regarding the amount of pride that Alonso seems to take in being a Met.

"He's got an ability to make you smile or make you laugh a little bit without really trying to," Wright said. "We are alike in that he takes a great deal of pride in being drafted by the Mets, coming up through the system and making an impact on the major league level and it seems like that when he puts that uniform on he has some of the similar feelings that I had putting that uniform on.

"You have a great deal of pride when this is the organization that drafted you, developed you and gave you your first chance. Especially in his case when they could have left him in the minor leagues for a couple of weeks, but they gave him the opportunity to make the team out of spring. Those are the guys that will go the extra mile for the organization, both on the field and off the field Those are the guys that you build your team around and it seems like he could be one of those guys."

So while any official captain title could still be quite a bit down the road, it's clear that in just one season, Alonso is heading in the same direction as Wright did during the early stages of his fantastic career in Queens.

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