The Mets and first baseman Pete Alonso have avoided arbitration, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN. The Boras Corporation client will make a salary of $20.5MM this year.
Alonso, 29, is coming off yet another potent year at the plate. His 46 home runs in 2023 were a jump from his 40 long balls a year prior. He has finished each full season of his career with between 37 and 53 homers. His batting line of .217/.318/.504 from last year translated to a wRC+ of 121, indicating he was 21% above league average at the plate. The reviews of his defense have been mixed in his career but he generally posted solid results in 2023. He also managed to steal four bases on the year.
Since Alonso cracked the Opening Day roster in 2019, he now has exactly five years of major league service time. He first qualified for arbitration going into the 2022 season and agreed to a $7.4MM salary that year, followed by a $14.5MM figure last year. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projected Alonso for a raise to $22MM but he’ll settle for a figure just beneath that.
Due to the Mets taking a sort of step back in 2024, Alonso’s final year of arbitration before he’s slated for free agency, there has been a lot of speculation about the club either trading him or signing him to a contract extension. To this point, neither has happened. New president of baseball operations David Stearns has repeatedly stated that he expects Alonso to be the club’s starting first baseman this year and also spoke this week about the difficulties of signing a player to an extension when they are this close to free agency.
Alonso’s fate would appear to be in the hands of the club. If the Mets falter and are out of contention by the deadline, he will be a top trade candidate in rumors this summer. If they remain in contention, perhaps he will stick with the club through the year and receive a qualifying offer at season’s end. The latter scenario wouldn’t be a guarantee that he would be destined to join another club. The Mets re-signed Brandon Nimmo after he reached free agency and also reached a new deal with Edwin Díaz just as he was about to hit the open market.
That’s 6-7 years too short.
Oh well. The drama continues.
Hope they figure a way to get him paid, but also stay with the Mets.
@Buckner As a long time Mets fan hope they trade him now or at the deadline before they have to pay him BIG Borass money when he will be 30. Look at his numbers, hits bad pitching on bad teams only.
Ha! Ain’t happening now, unfortunately. Most likely he’ll wait for free agency but he evidently didn’t try to fight it when projections showed $22M.
Projections have significant error bands.
Hopefully with more to come
The cubs will be ok to take on that salary
Well said.
You can have him for Crow-Armstrong and either Horton or Brown. And Cohen will ship you 10 million too.
I’d take PCA straight up and try to forget the Baez portion of Mets history.
He going nowhere dummies.
He gone
Yep. Into the ether.
Good chance he gets traded at the deadline if not sooner. The Mets have a killer hard first half schedule that should bury their season.
He goes by July. Boras says NO small money. Alonso changed agents to get Boras, who tells them all to go FREE Agent!!! Soto The Mets can get him for 500 million in 2025. Alonso wants 400mm for sure. He tells Cohen no low balling.
Not sure how the reviews on his defense are “mixed.” He’s god awful on D. He sends his throws for liftoff into LF and looks like he’s playing whack a mole when he stops a grounder in front of him. As for his .215/.313 percentages, I just can’t fathom those numbers getting $30M per like he wants to get. That contract will not age well.
30m? Judge got 360. That is the old floor. Soto wants 500mm. Alonso wants 4o0mm+. You only need one sucker. All of those huge long term teams wont age well. That includes Judge. The last few years of those deals, they assume could be a washout. All of those 10 yr deals.
He’s not Judge. Judge can play the OF and play it well. CF included. Judge is also a better hitter and more feared than Alonso. Alonso is also looking for $200M+ in total, not $400M+. 7/210 is the ballpark, but he’ll want more, and honestly don’t think he’s worth it.
6/$150 is fair
@padam — Not sure how much you watch Mets games, but Alonso is not a bad 1B. Not saying he’s smooth, but he works hard at it and generally gets balls to his right which he consistently lays out for. Decent job picking it on throws. He’s a solid 0 OOA by my eye test.
Agreed he can’t pick throws well for sure, he’s not great but he’s definitely a serviceable first basemen
Can pick throws I meant
He plays 1B. He better be able to pick throws. That is a prerequisite.
Figure he is going take for the free agency market and then anything happens. Mets should have locked him up 2-3 years ago now good chance he goes to another team with a clearer winning path. There are only 2-3 teams in the majors that couldn’t upgrade at first base with him.
They lowballed him 2-3 yrs ago and he said no.
I know this is a business, but I would have given him a bit more to entice him to want to hang around; but thinking on the other hand, maybe they gave him the 20mm to keep him hungry for free agency. Should be interesting to watch.
I hope the Mets keep him. He belongs on the Mets. I love watching the Braves beat them.
And we love watching the Braves get embarassed by the Phillies in the playoffs.
The circle of life. 🙂
Word. Glad that can only happen once a year. They play the Mets a whole lot.
Word is that Matt Carpenter is being brought into Queens to backup Pete at 1B/DH while helping corral the young kids coming through the Mets system as a “big brother” shadow type.