They even put a figure, $3.2 million, on the value of the approximately 50 tabloid back pages that had featured Cespedes over the course of 2016. Cespedes playing with flair, Cespedes hitting game-changing home runs, Cespedes driving exotic cars in spring training, Cespedes arriving for a workout on horseback. If it went on a back page of The New York Post, The Daily News or Newsday, it counted in the calculations.

From all this — which Van Wagenen and Thousand presented in a 100-page book — they came up with a bottom line: Cespedes was worth $34.7 million to the Mets in 2016, or $7.1 million more than the team had paid him.

The message was clear. The Mets, who play in a big market but are restrained in their spending, could afford an expensive — at least for them — new multiyear contract for Cespedes, arguably the most dynamic baseball player in New York. They would make it back, and more.

In the end, the Mets, the two agents and Cespedes agreed on a new four-year, $110 million deal.

It was not a huge contract by baseball standards, but for the Mets it was a big one. So the question is whether the analytics that Van Wagenen and Thousand used influenced the Mets to pay Cespedes, who will be 35 in the last year of the contract, more than they might have otherwise.