Pete Alonso not meeting with Mets means nothing, here’s why

Free agent Pete Alonso will make the 70-mile drive from his home in Tampa to meet with the Boston Red Sox, Baltimore Orioles, and any other interested party at Major League Baseball’s Winter Meetings in Orlando.

The Mets, the team that drafted him and with whom he has spent the last seven years, are not one of those teams.

Is it time for the Polar Bear fanatics in Queens to begin panicking? Not necessarily.

“I think Pete knows us really well, and I think we know Pete really well,” Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns told reporters down in Orlando. “I think he’ll take the time here to perhaps meet with organizations he doesn’t know quite as well, and I’m sure we’ll be in touch.”

This is not a new tactic teams around the majors use, specifically the Mets. When Brandon Nimmo was a free agent at the 2022 Winter Meetings, he held court with the San Francisco Giants and New York Yankees, only for the Mets to offer him an eight-year, $162 million deal that he ultimately signed.

Nimmo lasted just three years in Queens after signing that deal, as he was traded last month to the Texas Rangers for Marcus Semien.

However, Alonso’s market certainly appears to be moving more quickly than it did last year, when things seemed dormant until January. A lack of legitimate interest from other teams effectively forced Alonso to sign a two-year, $54 million deal, which he opted out of following the 2025 campaign.

While Stearns and manager Carlos Mendoza remain adamant that they would like to keep Alonso for the foreseeable future, they are doing their due diligence elsewhere. The Mets are linked with free-agent slugger Kyle Schwarber, coming off a 56-home-run season with the Philadelphia Phillies, and Japanese product Munetaka Murakami, whom Stearns has been personally scouting since at least the summer.

For more on Pete Alonso and the Mets, visit AMNY.com