Pete Alonso and Scott Boras continue to wait out the market in hopes of getting a longer-term deal, but the Mets — among others — do not appear to be budging.
After reports this week about Boras wanting a deal reminiscent of Prince Fielder’s nine-year, $214 pact with the Detroit Tigers in 2012, Jon Heyman of the New York Post clarified that Alonso is looking for a six-year deal.
Six years is one fewer than the seven-year, $158 million extension the Mets offered Alonso during the summer of 2023. While he and Boras hoped his worth would improve this winter, a down 2024 campaign had the opposite impact.
The 30-year-old Alonso posted a career-worst .788 OPS with 34 home runs and 88 RBI — the lowest outputs in a full 162-game season of his career.
The Mets now appear to be unwilling to go that many years to set up a reunion with Alonso, as the play for them and other interested parties, including the Los Angeles Angels, San Francisco Giants, and Boston Red Sox, appears to be going with a shorter-term higher-AAV contract — perhaps something in the three-to-four-year range.
Both president of baseball operations David Stearns and owner Steve Cohen have expressed hopes of bringing Alonso back, so if a concession or two was willing to be made, a deal could develop quickly. That being said, there is no end to this stalemate in sight, at least as of Thursday morning.
