Port St. Lucie, Florida: New York Mets infielder Pete Alonso during a spring training workout, February 23, 2024 in Port St. Lucie, Florida. (Photo by Alejandra Villa Loarca/Newsday RM via Getty Images)
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The New York Mets have a lot of work to do after adding the largest contract in the sport’s history failed to propel the team to the playoffs this past season.
The Mets proved to be a major disappointment despite a $342 million payroll that included $62 million for Juan Soto in the first year of his historic 15-year, $765 million contract. Now the team will have to navigate a highly scrutinized offseason that improves the roster and ensures a similar disappointment won’t take place next year.
To that end, the front office has a lot of important decisions to make. It will have to either bring back or replace star closer Edwin Diaz. It will have to find some way of improving a starting rotation that declined dramatically in the latter part of the season. And it will have to reshuffle the outfield and designated hitter mix.
But perhaps its most scrutinized decision will revolve around homegrown slugger Pete Alonso, who opted out of his contract to test free agency for the second winter in a row.
“If you are a Mets fan, wherever you stand on the notion of a new contract for Pete Alonso, you almost certainly find yourself wondering if the Polar Bear has indeed played his final home game in Queens,” Mets insider Andy Martino wrote for SNY. “In the early days of the offseason, a perception has seemed to congeal that Alonso is a goner, and that Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns does not want him.”
The arguments against Alonso are fairly obvious. At 30 years old, he is relatively seasoned for a long-term contract. And as a first baseman, his defensive position is more replaceable than some of the other priorities on the Mets’ roster. As a result, many fans might believe that Stearns is loath to offer the kind of significant contract that Alonso is seeking for a reunion in Queens, even though Alonso has played all seven of his big-league seasons with the team and became the franchise’s all-time home runs leader this past season.
However, Martino dispelled the idea that Stearns doesn’t appreciate the intangibles that Alonso brings as a member of the Mets.
“There seems to be, among many fans, a perception of Stearns as a cold technocrat who can’t understand the emotional connection fans feel toward a player,” Martino added. “That is not true.”
The perception that Stearns isn’t overly sympathetic to the history between Alonso and the franchise could stem from the fact that he emphasized defensive improvement during his end-of-season press conference. Alonso is one of the worst defenders among all first basemen in the sport and that fact could be difficult to balance alongside the affection many fans have for him.
“There is no bigger topic of the Mets’ offseason than Alonso,” Will Sammon noted for The Athletic. “He is also part of a larger discussion within the Mets. They want to improve defensively and redeem themselves after an embarrassing miss of the playoffs. Can they re-sign Alonso while also improving run prevention on a team with other long-term commitments to Soto, (Brandon) Nimmo and Francisco Lindor?”
A new contract for Alonso could be one financial commitment too many for the Mets. But if they do move on, it won’t be because Stearns doesn’t appreciate the emotional weight that Alonso carries with the franchise, at least according to Martino.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterchawaga/2025/11/11/mets-insider-dispells-pete-alonso-reunion-myth-that-is-not-true/
