New York Mets first baseman Pete Alonso and his agent, Scott Boras, want to reset the market for first basemen this winter when the slugger becomes a free agent. That would call for a contract worth over $200 million, but is he worth that much right now?
Considering the 2024 season he is having, more and more question marks are being raised because of it.
The 30-year-old has been one of Major League Baseball’s premier sluggers since debuting in 2019. Only Aaron Judge of the crosstown-rival Yankees has as many home runs as Alonso over the last five years (215).
With it, Alonso is on pace to shatter the Mets’ franchise power-hitting record books. He is only one of four players in the team’s history with 200 or more home runs and is just 37 away from tying Darryl Strawberry’s franchise record of 252 round-trippers despite being in just his sixth MLB season.
For an organization that has lacked such an offensive talent for a full, healthy career, cementing Alonso for the long term seems like a no-brainer. But president of baseball operations David Stearns has not committed to the first baseman as of yet and that decision of not hastily locking him up looks more and more like a smart call in due diligence.
Alonso is on pace to have his worst full (non-COVID) offensive season with the Mets, currently slashing .241/.325/.465 (.790 OPS) with 23 home runs and 59 RBI in 111 games. That OPS is 31 points lower than what was a full-season career-worst last season while his full-season pace of 33 home runs and 86 RBI are also projected to be the fewest he has had in a 162-game campaign — impressive numbers outside of his personal vacuum, which suggests just how spoiled the Mets have been over the last six years.
High-leverage situations have been an issue. Alonso is batting just .198 with a .698 OPS in 106 at-bats with runners in scoring position this season. With two outs and runners in scoring position, he is at an even .200. With men on base in any situation, he’s batting .209.
His fielding has also been problematic as his outs above average (OAA) of -6 ranks in the fifth percentile of the majors, per Baseball Savant. He was in the 44th percentile last season.
Ultimately, a season like this would decrease his value on the free-agent market to the point where a $200 million deal — at least from the Mets — feels like a pipe dream more than anything.
Just two years ago, the Atlanta Braves signed Matt Olson to an eight-year, $168 million deal ($21 million AAV) after he hit 39 home runs with 111 RBI and a .911 OPS with the Oakland Athletics in 2021. That same offseason, Freddie Freeman jumped from the Braves to the Los Angeles Dodgers after batting .300 with an .896 OPS, 31 home runs, and 83 RBI. He signed a six-year, $162 million deal ($27 million AAV) with a resume that had already featured a National League MVP and a World Series ring.
St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Paul Goldschmidt posted numbers similar to Alonso’s 2024 pace in his potential walk year in 2019, batting .260 with an .821 OPS, 34 home runs, and 97 RBI. He signed a five-year deal worth $130 million ($26 million AAV) with six All-Star appearances, four gold gloves, four silver sluggers, and four top-10 finishes in the NL MVP voting already on his ledger.
Alonso’s next contract should be right in the neighborhood of what Freeman and Goldschmidt received — something along the lines of a six-year, $150 million or seven-year, $175 million deal that would lock him up in Queens for the majority of the remainder of his career. Should Boras and Stearns run into a roadblock, however, the Mets would have no issue spending their money elsewhere.
Third baseman Mark Vientos is emerging as a potential middle-of-the-order bat this season and has a glove that could be more suited for first. With Ronny Mauricio and Brett Baty also in the third-base mix, the Mets could potentially spend their offseason cash on the likes of Juan Soto, who owns one of the best all-around young bats in the game in right field.
For more on Pete Alonso and the Mets, visit AMNY.com
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