The New York Mets are deemed one of three favorites, along with the Boston Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles, to come away with Pete Alonso’s signature this winter, which would retain their homegrown product, long-time first baseman, and franchise home run king for at least the next few years.
Keeping Alonso in Queens not only secures the middle of the Mets’ lineup with one of the best power-hitting bats in all of baseball, but it also addresses a significant number of at-bats from either the first base or designated hitter spots.
But Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns is not letting sentimentality, or even logic, get in the way. Somehow, a team that had one of the worst collapses in the last 20 years to miss the postseason has gotten worse, and it has come at the expense of long-time contributors and fan favorites.
The longest-tenured Met, Brandon Nimmo, was dealt to the Texas Rangers for second baseman Marcus Semien, whom Stearns coveted for his elite defense. On Tuesday, he lost out on star closer Edwin Diaz, who had been with the team since 2019, and could only watch as he joined the juggernaut Los Angeles Dodgers — the one team the Mets are trying to emulate.
If the Mets were to lose Alonso, Stearns would have to add finding a first baseman to a growing list of needs that now includes re-bolstering the bullpen after Diaz’s departure, providing reinforcements for a trainwreck of a starting rotation, and getting at least one more outfielder to replace Nimmo — and it’s clear that there will be no repeat of last winter.
Alonso’s market is clear, and while the Red Sox might have other top priorities, such as retaining veteran third baseman Alex Bregman, the Orioles are clearly serious about adding a big bat to the middle of their lineup. They reportedly matched the Philadelphia Phillies’ five-year, $150 million offer for 56-home-run bopper Kyle Schwarber, only to see the lefty behemoth stay in the City of Brotherly Love.
Meanwhile, Stearns is “hesitant” to give Alonso more than three years, per MLB.com, which would all but kick the Polar Bear out of town to, say, Baltimore.
That would mean three foundational members of the franchise — all of which were not the problem as to why the Mets came up woefully short of expectations in 2025 — are gone. That’s a difficult sell to the fan base, especially when the other shoe has yet to drop.
“That is something broadly that we talk about a lot, and we have a lot of those conversations,” Stearns said about parting with long-tenured players. “We’ve had them throughout this offseason… It is part of it. I can’t tell you I know how exactly how to weigh that. We do our best to weigh the full impact of any player on our team, and we make the best decision we can.”
