Watching Jose Reyes hit a single, and then another single, followed by a triple and a double in his four plate appearances last night, I really couldn’t imagine watching a lead-off presence display more dominance throughout a partial season. Numbers aside - though in a different argument, they could surely speak for themselves as Gary Cohen is quick to point out on Mets telecasts - the energy and spark he brings to the Mets’ lineup is unprecedented. 

As Reyes goes, so go the Mets. 

But, just as the numbers on Reyes’ batting average slowly ascend, so do the digits in his future bank account. He’s not a secret, and dominant seasons like this in contract years don’t go unrewarded. 

The Mets, their fans, Reyes and the media all know this. Re-sign him! Trade him! Let him walk! This sort of chatter has been the center of attention in the Mets-universe for weeks. Every day the discussion rages, without real progress. As Ted Berg wrote on TedQuarters yesterday, “I missed most of the goings-on in the Mets world last week, but it seems like the team is still playing around .500 baseball, the media is still producing a ton of speculative trade and contract nonsense with which bloggers and fans are running wild, and Jose Reyes is still awesome. So status quo.”

To me, as he plays better and that contract he earns inevitably becomes larger, it’s becoming clearer to me that there may be no right answer to this conundrum. 

If Reyes isn’t a Met next year, it would kill me just as I imagine it would kill every Mets fan to watch him hit lead-off and single-handedly take over games for another team. It doesn’t matter which team, though naturally some would be worse than others, but just the fact that he wouldn’t be sending the claw back to the Mets dugout is a present day nightmare.

He’s a homegrown talent. He plays a premium position. He’s dynamic, energetic and can light a fire under an offense better than anybody in baseball. It’s a dream come true. But, he’s also going to cost a boat-load of money.

So, at what point do you say enough? 

If his going price is significantly larger than $100 million - as many suspect it will be - does it make sense to pay him that when the great majority of those contracts prove to be financially irresponsible? Can you put a price on the heart, soul and engine of a team - which he has been this season? 

Realistically - he will get some type of contract like that. A contract that will be worth more than how he ends up performing over those say, five to seven years, but the price of a player isn’t how he will realistically play. His price is a dollar more than whatever some team is willing to fork over for him. 

Does it really make sense to dedicate such a large part of the payroll, for so many years, to a potentially fragile player whose skills would almost undoubtedly be worth far less than his contract towards the end of the deal? 

I’m not saying the answer is no.

Does it make sense to put a price on the face of a franchise? The fan-base doesn’t trust the owner, is frustrated with the team’s lack of success over the last few years, so the GM’s should get rid of the only reason why people turn on the TV and change it to SNY? 

Again, I don’t know the answer. 

Realistically - to me - there is no right answer. We would all be crushed to watch him elsewhere, regardless of the contract figure. But, part of me also knows this is why the front office doesn’t have financial flexibility to begin with. 

I feel for Sandy Alderson - I wouldn’t want to be the man to sign him to some mind-blowing contract. Nor would I want to be the one who’s responsible for picking up the phone when his agent calls and delivers the news as to where he’ll be playing next year - in a move that would break Mets’ fan’s hearts.

Who said being a GM is fun?