For a while, Mets fans weren’t sure what to make of the team’s free agent approach.
Championship Series – Toronto Blue Jays v Seattle Mariners – Game 3 | Jane Gershovich/GettyImages
Shorter deals. Higher annual salaries. Opt-outs everywhere. A roster built like it’s always one year away from being reshuffled.
It felt risky.
It felt chaotic.
And depending on who you asked, it felt like the Mets were either playing chess… or just making excuses for not committing long-term.
But now, thanks to a contract that’s going sideways in Toronto, the Mets suddenly have something they didn’t expect:
a brutally convenient case study.
Because if you want to understand why the Mets keep leaning into short-term, high-AAV deals, all you have to do is look at one name:
Anthony Santander.
Santander was once seen as a “solution”… now he’s a warning sign
Before Pete Alonso returned to the Mets on a two-year deal with an opt-out, the fanbase did what fanbases do in panic mode:
They started building replacement fantasies.
Some were reasonable, like Christian Walker. Some were creative, like Jurickson Profar. Some were pure desperation.
And while those names had their own problems in 2025 — Walker underperforming in Houston, Profar losing half a season to a PED suspension — none of them created the kind of long-term headache Toronto is now staring at.
Santander did.
The Blue Jays gave him five years and $92.5 million, with a team option that could push it even higher.
On paper, that’s not an absurd deal.
But baseball doesn’t punish teams for the amount as much as it punishes them for the years.
And after just one season, the results have been ugly enough to make people whisper what nobody wants to say out loud:
This could already be dead money.
The nightmare isn’t just the production — it’s the timeline
Santander’s first season in Toronto was almost invisible.
He played just 54 games and hit .175.
That’s not “slow start” territory. That’s “we might have made a massive mistake” territory.
And this is where the real pain begins:
Toronto isn’t even close to being done with this contract.
After one year, it’s only 20% complete.
So now the Blue Jays are stuck in the worst place a team can be with a free agent signing:
Not bad enough to cut ties immediately…
But bad enough to know the rope is already fraying.
And because the deal stretches for years, they can’t just shrug and move on. They have to live inside the decision.
Why the Mets would rather overpay now than suffer later
This is exactly why the Mets’ approach has started to look less reckless and more calculated.
If Santander were making $30 million per year for just two seasons, Toronto would be furious — but at least they’d see the finish line.
It would hurt fast… and then it would be gone.
Instead, they’re paying him just under $20 million per year with more years attached, which sounds “manageable” until you realize what it really means:
The suffering is spread out.
And in baseball, spreading out the suffering doesn’t make it smaller.
It makes it harder to escape.
The quiet trap: teams don’t bench contracts, they bench players… eventually
Here’s what people miss when they talk about “it’s not that much money.”
It’s not just about payroll.
It’s about decision-making.
When a team commits five years to a player, they don’t just pay him — they protect the idea of him.
They justify him.
They force opportunities.
They keep running him out there because admitting failure too early makes the front office look foolish.
And Santander is the perfect example.
Even if he struggles again in 2026, the Blue Jays aren’t going to yank him from the lineup quickly. They’ll keep waiting for the bounce-back. They’ll keep giving him “one more month.”
Because they almost have to.
That’s the hidden cost of long-term deals:
they don’t just buy performance, they buy stubbornness.
There’s still a chance Santander rebounds… but the Mets don’t build on “hope”
To be fair, Santander has a track record.
He hit 44 home runs in 2024. He was a real slugger in Baltimore. There’s a version of 2026 where he comes back healthier, stronger, and makes this whole conversation look premature.
But the Mets’ philosophy isn’t built on optimism.
It’s built on protection.
Protection from the exact scenario Toronto is now living through:
a multi-year commitment to a player whose floor shows up immediately.
The Mets already learned this lesson the hard way
Mets fans don’t need a lecture on bad contracts. They’ve watched it up close.
Starling Marte’s four-year deal became a part-time player situation by the end. Sean Manaea’s contract is a perfect modern example: if he struggles, the Mets can pivot. They can move him. They can reassign his role. They can escape the commitment faster.
That’s the advantage of short-term thinking:
It keeps the roster flexible.
It keeps the leash tight.
And it prevents one mistake from becoming a multi-year prison.
The uncomfortable conclusion
The Mets aren’t always right.
But Santander’s deal is a reminder that the “safe” contract isn’t always safe.
Sometimes, the most dangerous thing a team can do is chase value by stretching years — because once the decline shows up, you’re not just paying for a player.
You’re paying for the silence that follows.
And the Mets?
They’d rather pay loudly now… than suffer quietly for five years.
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