He may not have been at the podium on Thursday, but Mets special advisor David Wright got a pretty noteworthy shoutout from COO Jeff Wilpon when asked what role he played in the Jacob deGrom extension negotiations.
"Be careful, he's a secret weapon," Wilpon said.
Since he began his new role with the team, Mets GM Brodie Van Wagenen noted Wright having "a voice in our room on any number of different fronts." And that voice was heard when the Mets and deGrom were trying to hammer out this extension to keep the ace in Flushing for the foreseeable future.
"As Jacob probably can say, David has been a pretty good mentor to Jacob over the course of his career," Van Wagenen said. "David helped express his belief in the man -- not just the baseball player -- and gave us confidence to make this type of commitment."
The commitment was $137.5 million worth of fully guaranteed money with $52.5 million deferred. And after the long days of negotiating, Van Wagenen admitted Wright's deal construct at the very end helped both sides shake hands before heading to Syracuse.
"In the final couple of weeks as the process went forward, David actually was on the whiteboard with me in my office in [Port] St. Lucie and was crafting and sketching different variations of the deal," Van Wagenen said. "As the deal ended up, one of his constructs we had to work on some sort of gymnastics to get to the final finish line. But it was actually David Wright who helped construct one of the final deal structures."
Wright has been very active in his new role as special advisor, whether it's making speeches to the team's minor league camps, or helping ink key cogs to long-term deals. With the Mets now looking at potential extensions with Noah Syndergaard and Michael Conforto among others, Van Wagenen may be looking to Wright once again for guidance.