As the calendar flipped to June during this 2024 season, the largest potential fish on the trade market ahead of Major League Baseball’s July 30 deadline was Pete Alonso.
The New York Mets’ slugging first baseman is in a contract year and a team that was 11 games under .500 looked as though it was gearing up to sell off anything that was not nailed to the floor for more than a year.
Prognosticators spent their days playing hypothetical games of “what if?” Which team would want him most? Which club could offer the best package in a deal?
Three weeks later, the tune has changed. The Mets enter Sunday’s series finale against the Chicago Cubs having won 12 of their last 16 games and in the thick of such a mediocre Wild Card race in the National League East, that they are just two games out of a postseason spot. Granted, seven teams in the NL are outside the playoff picture but within three games of that final Wild Card spot.
Suddenly the brakes have been pumped on trading the likes of Alonso or JD Martinez or Luis Severino and instead, talking about the idea of holding firm for a postseason run.
Considering David Stearns’ need to execute Steve Cohen’s philosophy of cementing long-term sustainability within the organization, it would be a surprise to see the Mets as buyers. There is a crop of young players on the cusp of the big leagues who should begin contributing to a contender within the next year or two that are untouchable and would likely deter any team from doing business with them.
Of course, the possibility still exists that there will be a team in the playoff hunt that could call up Stearns and blow the doors off of an overpay to acquire a difference-making bat like Alonso’s. But at this point, it feels like it would take another considerable swoon and a complete drop-off from playoff contention for Mets brass to consider that.
Alonso himself continues to express his desire to remain in New York, which he did so most recently with MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo.
“I hope [I am still with the Mets after the trade deadline]. I really do, because that means that we are playing good baseball. We are playing winning baseball. For me, this is a special place. I love the guys and the staff in the clubhouse. This is home. … If I don’t get traded, which I hope I don’t, it means we are playing winning baseball, we are clicking and we are doing what we are supposed to be doing as a team. We are winning games… It’s a really special place. I would like to stay. It’s a great city. It’s a great place to play. Yeah … this is my ninth year with this organization. I’ve grown up here. It’s just so many special things that have happened. Some of my best memories in life have been in New York.”
Should the Mets continue winning at this clip, he should have no worries about being jettisoned out of town. And if the Mets want to keep him in blue and orange for the foreseeable future, they have the financial power to make sure that happens when he eventually tests the open market with his agent, Scott Boras, this winter.
