So Jose Reyes is awesome. That much we know.

The Mets’ shortstop leads all players not named Jose Bautista in WAR. He is tops in the National League in batting average and triples, seventh in OPS+, second in stolen bases, and he plays a premium defensive position. We are watching a 27-year-old Reyes benefiting from full health, a full Spring Training and an organization, manager and hitting coach that seem committed to handling him correctly. And it is spectacular.

It won’t always be this good, of course. But Mets fans witnessing how good it can be are understandably clamoring for more, begging the club not to trade the homegrown star, demanding the front office pony up the cash necessary to re-sign him to a long-term extension.

That all makes sense: When a big-market team like the Mets gets its hands on a player of Reyes’ caliber, it should build around him, not trade him for prospects or allow him to flee in free agency. It’s impossible to expect any young player returned in a trade or selected with a compensatory draft pick to develop into half the talent that Reyes is, and since Reyes is still only 27 — he turns 28 on Saturday — he likely has several seasons of being awesome ahead of him.

Even if you have already written off the 2012 Mets for whatever reason, you must realize that a well-run team can turn things around in two years. And in two years, Reyes will be 29, turning 30 — hardly an old man, even in baseball terms.

Thing is, great players makes lots of money in free agency. Last year, both Carl Crawford and Jayson Werth took home deals that seemed particularly pricey — Crawford’s for seven years and $142 million, Werth’s for seven and $126 million. Neither is a perfect comp for Reyes since neither entered free agency with Reyes’ recent injury history, but both play corner outfielder positions where their production could be more easily replaced.

It could be that those deals were a couple of outliers, GMs going rogue in a strange offseason. Or the deals could indicate a new trend in free agency. If more teams are locking up young players to team-friendly contracts early in their careers, fewer elite players will hit the open market while they’re still young. Plus those teams will have more money to spend on the free agents that do come around.

Which brings me to the poll I posted here a couple weeks ago, asking readers the maximum deal they’d be willing to offer Reyes. Of 381 responses, 72.4 percent wouldn’t give Reyes more than a six-year, $110 million deal.

Again, Jayson Werth — a 31-year-old corner outfielder — got a seven-year, $126 million deal last year. And at the time just about everyone agreed it was a huge overpay, and that Nats GM Mike Rizzo probably had to offer Werth that much to get him to agree to join a franchise like the Nationals. But it only takes one Mike Rizzo, right?

I’m not sure I have any strong conclusion except to say that if you’re shouting, “pay the man,” you might want to specify how much. Because though the Mets should always be able to spend money, being a huge-market team with this here TV network and all, they should always spend money wisely. And though my emotional side wants Reyes back at any cost, I recognize that if the Mets are going to be working with finite resources — i.e. continue not being the Yankees — there has to be a limit to the amount they’re willing to give any player.

One more thought: It seems like teams spending on the free-agent market must do so knowing that they’re almost certainly going to get burned on the last couple of years of a contract. I wonder if GMs approach it that way: Think as if you’re paying the guy the whole sum of the contract for the first few years while he’s still playing at an elite level, and just hope he remains productive enough on the back end of his contract to cull some additional value out of those final seasons. But then I guess it doesn’t really matter much, you just hope for as much total production as possible over the length of the deal.

In conclusion, Jose Reyes is sweet. Pay the man.