For Mets fans, it should not really matter how their favorite team got to this point. All that matters is that president of baseball operations David Stearns and owner Steve Cohen got it done, which they did late Wednesday night when they re-signed Pete Alonso to a two-year, $54 million deal.
Mission accomplished in a best-case scenario for the Flushing faithful.
He’s back: Pete Alonso returns to Mets on 2-year, $54 million deal
Initial industry speculation at the start of this offseason hinted that if the Mets swung big and landed Juan Soto, the likelihood of the franchise returning to the team that drafted him plummeted.
The Queens club did get Soto, beating out a number of big-name suitors like the Yankees and Red Sox to sign him to the most expensive contract in North American sports history at 15 years and $765 million in early December.
And so the Alonso saga officially began.
While he and his agent, Scott Boras, looked for lucrative long-term deals to reset the first-basemen market, the Mets (and others) refused. Stearns ultimately offered Alonso a reported three-year deal worth $71 million with an opt-out last month.
He declined.
It appeared as though that spelled the end of the Polar Bear’s stay at Citi Field, with reports suggesting the Mets were preparing for life without their franchise baseman — a plan that included last year’s breakout star third baseman, Mark Vientos, shifting over to first with the starting job at the hot corner up for grabs between young homegrown products like Brett Baty, Ronny Mauricio, and Luisangel Acuna.
Cohen proceeded to detail “exhausting” negotiations with Alonso and Boras, saying that this was even more difficult that beating out the field to sign Soto.
But a lack of legitimate interest elsewhere — and competitive offers — ultimately paved Alonso’s way back to the club he repeatedly said he wanted to stay with, at least for the 2025 season. There is an opt-out following this year, which will see him paid $30 million as the most expensive first baseman in the league.
It allows Alonso to bet on himself and hit the open market again in hopes of landing a longer-term deal. But that is a bridge to cross when the Mets get there — a bridge that Stearns and Cohen hopes features a World Series trophy before they arrive at that point.
The 30-year-old Alonso and his perennial threat of 40 home runs makes New York’s lineup that much more imposing, thus lengthening the top of an order that needed one more big bat. Suddenly their lineup could very well be the second-best in the National League behind only the defending-champion Dodgers.
Here is how things could look come Opening Day:
2025 Mets projected lineup after Pete Alonso’s return
- Francisco Lindor, SS
- Juan Soto, RF
- Mark Vientos, 3B
- Pete Alonso, 1B
- Brandon Nimmo, LF
- Starling Marte, DH
- Francisco Alvarez, C
- Jeff McNeil, 2B
- Jose Siri, CF
