Chris McMonigle RIPS Mets' Front Office

**Ethan** (0:00)
Took the last plane out of Saigon.

**Chris McMonigle** (0:03)
Took the first passport to China. And Jimmy, there's still so much to be done. A little Jimmy Buffett on Summer Friday. Nothing better. 888-808-1019. So as a Met fan here, I wonder if Pete feels like the Met should look to the Cardinals for how they do business. We were just talking about long-term contracts with Devers. JJ Wetherholt, he is a young 23-year-old prospect, well, rookie now for the Cardinals, playing second base. And he's having a very nice season. He is hitting...
If my phone wants to move, thank you very much. He's hitting 267 He's played 87 games. He's got an OPS of 773, OPS plus 118 Very strong, young rookie player for the Cardinals. And they're having a fairly good season, better than a lot of expectations early on in the year. They just announced that they are signing him, the Cardinals have four games on over 500, in third place in the Central. They're signing him to an eight year, $112 million extension.
And you have to ask, we've seen this trend throughout baseball. We've seen a lot of these young prospects, we saw McGonigle just sign a long term contract already. Come on McGonigle, help a fellow McGonigle out. Let's put all my money in a pile and all my money, all your money in a pile and split it.
But we've seen McGonigle sign long term contracts, we've seen prospects sign long term contracts. Now typically those are reserved for teams like, I guess Detroit, like the Kansas City Royals with Bobby Witt, like now the Cardinals with JJ Wetherholt, where you don't know if the franchise has the money you're trying to eat into years of free agency. Would it make sense for the Mets who feel like they have found a couple of prospects here? I know Ewing was playing second base. That's going to be part of the would you or wouldn't you conversation we're going to have with Pete later. But it's fascinating. Ewing and Benge have played fairly well, young prospects. But you do have a rich owner that typically, you're not very concerned about losing guys in free agency. But you do this now before the new dynamics of whatever Major League Baseball players money is moving forward. Who knows if things are going to be grandfathered in? Who knows how it's going to work necessarily? You could have a long-term contract for Benge. You could have a long-term contract for Ewing. I mean, look, have they shown you a ton? I think they've shown you, I think people feel like Ewing is the future center fielder. To the point where I saw on SMY, we're arguing back and forth about whether or not during this time with the injury now to the Entos and having to move players around the infield, would you consider playing Ewing at second base? We saw a little bit of him yesterday and he made one play up the middle or at least got to a ball up the middle. He showed good range. He's been an infielder, outfielder his career. Or is he just so good that he's your future center fielder and you don't mess with it? But I always find it interesting, like, should the Yankees look to give Ben Rice a contract now and see if they can eat into free agency and get some, you know, save some money now?
Save some money long term by giving it to the player now.
Would you be in line? Would you be excited today if they announced that Ewing and Benge, Endor or Benge, whichever way, signed long term deals, signed an eight year deal for $100 million?

**SPEAKER_3** (3:59)
I think excited is not the right word, but I'd feel good about it.

**Chris McMonigle** (4:03)
Are you confident locking into Ewing as your center fielder for the next eight seasons?

**SPEAKER_3** (4:07)
I think Ewing and Benge are going to be corner pieces to this team. I think that you have to. I think right now, you know, even though there's, this team has been brutal all season long, the outfield is something you can actually like hang your hat on, be like, OK, this is pretty good. Soto, Benge and Ewing, and I would say this much, it shows commitment, which is something that the Mets really haven't done to their homegrown players. That's something like, you know, talk about Zach Wheeler with Evan Roberts and he goes crazy. You talk about Pete Alonso and me, I want to jump off a bridge. You know what I mean? Like there's certain guys where it's just like, there's no reason why they shouldn't be here. And I'm not saying that it's going to be a home run and guarantee that AJ Ewing and Carson Benge are going to be the best ever.