X.Com – Pete Alonso’s $54 Million Commitment to the Mets
Pete Alonso, affectionately known as ‘The Polar Bear,’ has inked a two-year contract with the New York Mets, totaling $54 million. This agreement includes a $30 million salary for 2025 and a player option for 2026, as reported by several sources. The deal, which also features a $10 million signing bonus, has been met with enthusiasm from fans and analysts alike, underlining Alonso’s pivotal role in the team’s strategy. The contract’s structure provides flexibility, allowing both Alonso and the Mets to reassess their positions after the 2025 season. This move has sparked discussions on potential lineup configurations, with Alonso’s power at the plate expected to significantly boost the team’s performance in the upcoming seasons.
I want to blog more about MLB news and baseball in general, but sometimes it can be hard to set it up correctly. This Pete Alsonso story is a good example. I’ve got a lot to say on the matter but get caught up in the narrative of why this matters, why I care and generally just building a basis for analysis. It can be borderline paralyzing as evident by my struggles this morning to rip into this topic. So out of a sign of transparency and respect, I’m peeling back the curtain here to show you how the sausage is made inside my head. That’s a pillar of CarlsBlogs.com.
What I decided to come up with is just a bullet point list of random thoughts about the big story. I’d ask you guys meet me halfway and be smart enough to understand that sometimes I’m going to skip pleasantries and narrative building just to get into the meat and potatoes of MLB stuff. At 10 blogs a day, I don’t necessarily have all the time to romance you with sensational foreplay.
With that in mind, here’s what I think about the Pete Alonso deal
1. David Stearns did a masterful job keeping a clubhouse leader on an affordable deal that puts a massive chip on his shoulder in yet another contract year. He also gave Alonso maximum accountability by offering 2 separate contracts. Alonso picked between a 2-year deal at $54M and a 3-year for $71M. There was more money in the 1st year of the 2-year contract, so Alonso took it as a bet on himself. All of this is genius play the front office because Alonso is the perfect player for this scenario. He’s extremely intense and out to prove people wrong. So all of this has the makings to be a year where he drastically out-performs expectations with all of the soft stuff floating around the contract. So good job by Stearns to check all the boxes without sacrificing long-term flexibility with a guy trending downwards.
2. Yes, Pete Alonso is trending down as would any 31-year old power hitting right-handed first baseman with his statistical body of work. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to forecast regression in his play and the contract addresses that perfectly. Pete can outperform and get a bigger deal somewhere else next winter by opting out. Or he can have another mediocre year and try to bounce back in 2026. But there’s no risk after that and the Mets are much better off because of that.
3. Probably a little awkward that the Mets biggest leader since David Wright will get paid approximately 1500% less in free agency than Juan Soto. Like the entire deal is worth 1 season of Juan. So I think it will be really interesting to follow Pete’s presence and the clubhouse storylines this year. Even from a distance and someone who isn’t close to being a Mets fan – I think Pete is one of the bigger/stronger voices for his club across the league and I’m curious to how his leadership responds to the post-free agency period.
4. 1st base is a bad position to play in MLB and I don’t think it’s getting better. I saw it really for the first time in Chicago a couple years ago with Rizzo seeking a contract extension. The sides were just so far apart on his value, they couldn’t get anything done. And that’s continued with many other free agents to the point that only Freddie Freeman has gotten a large bag of money at 1st base since Paul Goldschmidt a few years ago. Especially if you don’t consider KB or Bryce by position, and remember Matt Olson signed an extension after being traded to the Braves. So in practice, the only guy to get paid a big time contract is arguably the best 1st baseman since Joey Votto and Albert Pujols. That’s how good you have to be to get paid at the top of the league, which obviously sucks for 1st basemen everywhere.
5. Finally, I like Pete a lot as a baseball player and a guy and everything in between. I think he’s great for baseball and it would be weird to watch him play for another team. That’s mostly because he’s just so intense and passionate for the Mets, and I think it would be difficult for him to apply that same approach to another dugout. He could certainly try but it just wouldn’t be the same. And in that spirit, I want MLB to start considering the value of having guys play their entire careers for 1 franchise. It’s one small area where the commissioner’s office should start taking steps to incentivize this for owners behind the scenes.
Everyone should understand the league is better when icons stay with their team, so maybe set up a secret fund of money to share in these costs. Each club gets to designate one player under franchise level status where everyone shares in each other’s costs. Say it’s like $11,000,000 or whatever the average salary is for players not on league minimum contracts. Then that becomes the fixed cost for the franchise level player designated by a club. And then there’s some kind of revenue-sharing factoral that dictates how much a team has to pay into the fund. So the Yankees pay more than the Royals as an example. Anod then use that fund to keep hometown icons for their retirement year?
I think that’s a good idea but I don’t work for the league. I’m just a fan who wishes Rizzo was a player/coach for the Cubs.
In either event, congratulations to David Stearns on keeping your guy with an absolute genius level contract.