The quote is new, but the sentiment of wanting to play in New York is not a new idea from A-Rod. Here’s what he told John Harper of the New York Daily News in 2008 about his desire to play for the Mets for the 2001 season:

“I went for the contract when my true desire was to go play for the Mets … [I didn’t want to be] taken down a road where I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, where am I? Oh, $400 million to play in some place I hate? Great, I’ll blow my —- head off.'”

Later in the interview, he explained one of the reasons he regretted his decision is that his daughter missed her bedroom and her toys in New York. In fact, A-Rod said he grew up watching the 1986 Mets. He also reportedly met Jennifer Lopez, who he’s currently dating, at a Mets game.

Though his stats in Texas weren’t exactly what they would’ve been in Queens, it’s easy to imagine what the Mets would have looked like with the star shortstop. Rodriguez had 52 home runs in 2001 and posted 7.6 WARP. He and Mike Piazza would have been the best offensive tandem in baseball, both in the top 10 for WARP. Meanwhile, Mets shortstop Rey Ordonez had a 1.2 WARP. That’s an approximate six wins extra for New York … who finished six wins behind the Atlanta Braves in the division.

Here’s what former Mets executive Jim Duquette said of the situation at the time : “If we sign Alex that championship window would have stayed open a lot longer for us, and we might not go down the Mo Vaughn road or the [Roberto] Alomar road or the [Jeromy] Burnitz road.”

Instead, the Mets changed up their roster the next season, lost Robin Ventura, and gained the tandem of Roberto Alomar and Jeromy Burnitz. That alone was a net negative; Alomar had -0.3 WARP–he had 6.9 in 2001 before he joined the Mets–and Burnitz had -0.7 WARP. Mets manager Bobby Valentine moved Edgardo Alfonzo (5.0 WARP) from second base to third base to replace Ventura with Alomar now at second. Ordonez had a 1.1 WARP at shortstop.

Away from the Mets in Arlington, A-Rod was top-five in baseball with 7.5 WARP and Ventura had 4.4 WARP with the Yankees. Assuming they would had kept their infield intact with Rodriguez in the mix, they would have had a combined 16.9 WARP from A-Rod, Ventura and Alfonzo. Instead, they had 5.8 WARP from Ordonez, Alfonzo and Alomar; that equates to approximately 11 more wins. The Mets, of course, finished last in the NL East.

They also finished last in 2003. Phillips was fired as general manager. The Rangers also finished in last place–but for three straight seasons–and Rodriguez wanted to leave. Soon, Rodriguez was on the Yankees for 2004 and the Mets debuted Jose Reyes and David Wright.

During a radio interview in 2016, former Mets general manager Steve Phillips offered more details on why it never worked out to sign Rodriguez. He said that it “would have been historic” to pair Rodriguez with Piazza, especially after the Mets had just lost to the Yankees in the World Series. But he knows there were challenges to add Rodriguez, who he called “the best player” he had ever seen.

“We weren’t going to pay $25 million a year, I can tell you that. My sense from Mets ownership is we weren’t in that ballpark, but I wonder if we had gone back and said this is what we’re willing to do, are you willing to do it, whether Alex would’ve been in a position to change the conversation.”

If what Rodriguez told Buck has validity, then perhaps the Mets blew it. But Phillips added that Boras and Rodriguez had requested an office space at the stadium “for marketing purposes” as well as lots of billboards around the city. Boras also requested four full-time employees on the media relations to handle requests for A-Rod. A private plane was also mentioned.

During that offseason, Phillips said such a demand would “destroy the fabric of the team” saying: ”I have serious reservations that a structure in which you have a 24-plus-one-man roster can really work. In fact, I don’t think it can work.”

Phillips said that building a baseball team is about 25 players and when that’s compromised, it becomes difficult to win. Eventually, he lost his job with the Mets to Duquette.

Rodriguez went on to win the AL Most Valuable Player award in 2003, 2005, and 2007 and won the World Series with the Yankees in 2009. The alternate history of Rodriguez on the Mets is fascinating, and opens up several questions.

How long would he have stayed with the team? What would they have done with Wright and Reyes? And, despite Phillips’ quotes, was it really just the money that kept the Mets from signing A-Rod? If the Mets had offered $170 or $180 million–something that the former GM once hinted may not have been enough–it seems now that Rodriguez would have accepted. If so, baseball in New York would have been very, very different

Photo Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

This same sort of attitude existed about Alex Rodriguez in the late-1990s about his free agency after the 2000 season—except it was about the Mets. A-Rod was a Mets fan from childhood. Back in the halcyon days before anyone but the New York financial scene had heard names like Bernie Madoff and Irving Picard, the Mets were one of baseball’s top spenders. Just two years before Rodriguez was to hit free agency, the Mets made Mike Piazza baseball’s highest paid player. The Mets ended 2000 by losing the World Series to the cross-town rival Yankees. Incumbent shortstop Rey Ordonez had missed most of the previous season with a broken arm, and would come back as a diminished player. His replacement, Mike Bordick, was a free agent the Mets would not re-sign. Alex Rodriguez and the Mets looked like the most perfect of fits.

What happened? Lots of tabloid ink was spilled sorting that out. The easiest answer is that Texas, led by spendthrift owner Tom Hicks, rushed in with a soon-to-be-infamous $252 million offer that blew away the field, including the Mets. Within three years, the Rangers would go to fairly extreme measures to dump what was by then perceived as an albatross contract. Yet, even with Rodriguez’s fairly precipitous decline, it’s almost stunningly obvious that over the ten years covered by that contract’s term, he was worth every penny of the deal and a lot more. From 2001 through 2010, A-Rod averaged 151 games a season, hit .299/.394/.577, won three AL MVPs, made nine All-Star Games, and even won two Gold Gloves at shortstop before sliding over to third base.

The Mets, never content to just be outbid, proceeded to lavish the media with stories of perks Rodriguez and Boras demanded. Things like marketing agreements, use of jets, and luxury boxes are common in large-scale free agent deals. They don’t cost the team all that much, and they’re nice for the player and his family. But to the common fan, the one saving up a couple hundred bucks to take their family to a game on the weekend, it’s all a bit outrageous. Usually this stuff goes unreported except on places like Cot’s Contracts, or maybe as a minor story when full contract details come out, but everything in the Alex Rodriguez Show is magnified.

Rodriguez, for his part, would go on to become a significant Met killer over the course of his Yankees career. Over 262 plate appearances against the orange and blue, he hit .308/.397/.518. He’d also start the most infamous play in Met Subway Series history, popping the ball up to Luis Castillo in a 2009 tilt to seemingly end what would become one of the worst losses in Mets history. He’d ultimately regret signing with the Rangers over the Mets, after his public image and relationship with Boras had both soured.

It’s easy to play “what if” games with Rodriguez and the Mets. The Mets would only make the playoffs once during Rodriguez’s ten year deal, in 2006. But they were close and trying to contend for nearly that entire period, and he plausibly could have pushed them into the playoffs in 2001, 2005, 2007, and 2008. With four or five playoff appearances, the Mets very well could’ve won a World Series or two in that span. Kaz Matsui never becomes a Met, but given that the Mets did move Jose Reyes off short for Matsui, Reyes probably becomes a career second baseman in deference to Rodriguez. This largely makes Rodriguez a straight swap for the continuous pool of journeyman shortstops before Reyes’ arrival and second basemen after.

And then, of course, there’s the biggest “what if” of them all. Rodriguez claims that he started using performance-enhancing drugs in 2001 with the Rangers due to the clubhouse atmosphere and pressures of his huge deal. We have no way of knowing whether that’s true or not, but perhaps he never starts using—or at least never gets caught. In that universe, perhaps Rodriguez’s retirement is what it should be—a celebration of one of baseball’s 10 or so greatest players ever—instead of the conflicted spectacle that it’s become.

Photo Credit: Mark L. Baer-USA TODAY Sports