According to a source, the Mets are willing to engage in extension talks with Dickey this offseason, in lieu of salary arbitration or a one-year deal. Dickey is arbitration-eligible for one more season, meaning he will be under team control in 2011 regardless of whether he agrees to a new contract. Because of that, the Mets could wait to see if the 35-year-old knuckleballer can duplicate his 2010 success.

But according to people familiar with the Mets’ thinking, the team has determined that Dickey’s performance this year (9-5, 2.57 ERA) is not a fluke. Therefore, the Mets are open to a contract extension that would keep the pitcher from becoming a free agent after next year.

– Andy Martino, N.Y. Daily News.

Let me start by saying I love R.A. Dickey as much as the next guy. He’s a knuckleballer, for one, and who doesn’t appreciate a knuckleballer? The world needs knuckleballers. They allow 29-year-olds who can’t throw harder than 65 miles an hour to maintain some small hope of a Major League career. That’s important.

Plus he reads literature, philosophizes, and would be a ballboy at the U.S. Open but won’t part ways with his beard. Oh and he makes a hilarious face when he pitches. Plus he’s got a 157 ERA+. The guy is a hero any way you slice it.

And so I won’t immediately say talk of an extension is a bad idea, especially since Dickey has been unbelievable this year. But I’ll say a couple of things about the discussions worry me, even if I don’t put too much stock in any anonymously sourced stories. Remember that last year at this time we were hearing lots of talk of a Jeff Francoeur extension.

First of all, I was under the impression — or at least under the rampant speculation — that the Mets would have a new GM by November. Word of an extension for Dickey shouldn’t help dispel rumors of a muddied organizational structure or that the new hire will come from within. So there’s that.

The second thing is that, though there’s evidence that Dickey has been getting better for a while now, and though I don’t want to be the person to stomp all over an awesome thing, 20 starts is not nearly enough of a sample to call something “not a fluke.”

I hope and want for Dickey to be great, and since I don’t know the terms of the rumored extension there’s no real point in fretting about it too much. I can’t imagine the Mets would actually pay him like he’s going to be one of the 10 best pitchers in the National League. Which is good, because that would be ridiculous.

Dickey is a different pitcher from Tim Wakefield because he throws harder and throws his knuckleball at two different speeds, but Wakefield’s the best comparison we have in recent vintage since he’s pretty much the only other successful knuckleballer. And look what Wake did to the National League when he broke in with the Pirates in 1992 and the American League when he resurfaced in 1995. Kind of looks a lot like what Dickey’s doing this year.

Wakefield was a decent and valuable pitcher for the Sox for a very long time, but outside of a blip year in 2002 he was never again what he was in his first time around the league in 1995. And so I fear the same might be true for Dickey.

The Mets will always need effective innings, and it seems like guys who can control knuckleballs will be able to provide those. And so Dickey should be that. I just don’t know that it’s reasonable to expect him to continue dominating National League hitters once they’ve seen his signature pitch a few more times. I wouldn’t necessarily say this is a fluke, I’d say it’s the perfectly natural progression of a deceptive pitch.