And somebody has definitive thought that thought before, as there is already a plugin for doing just this (or very similar to this). Check out the post below, talking about the Link with alias plugin:
Another option is to use assign a hotkey to Links: Create link from the Links plugin. This allows you select the text, execute that command and it opens the autosuggester allowing the aliased text to remain an alias.
And yes, I do still understand it would be nice to have this a native command, I’m just finding that there do exists workarounds in the community plugins. 
This feature request is also very similar to this one: Type | while text is selected to create a link with the selected text as an alias - #12 by pavel.knowledge Slightly different mechanics, but essentially the same. That thread ended with the publicificaiton of the Link with alias plugin I mention above.