Pete Alonso has officially opted out of his contract with the Mets, reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post. He declines a $24MM player option and heads back to free agency.
Alonso announced that he’d be doing this as soon as the season ended. There was never much intrigue anyhow. Last offseason’s two-year pillow deal was always designed to get him back to the market this winter. He collected $30MM for the first season — a $10MM signing bonus and $20MM salary — and now takes another shot at finding the long-term deal that didn’t materialize last winter.
The five-time All-Star should be better positioned this time around. He’s coming off a .272/.347/.524 showing with 38 home runs and an NL-leading 41 doubles across 709 plate appearances. Alonso’s 2024 had been a relative down season by his standards, as he’d hit .240/.329/.459 with 34 round-trippers. Last winter also saw his market dragged down by the qualifying offer. That’s not on the table this time. The collective bargaining agreement prevents a player from receiving more than one QO in his career.
Alonso will slot behind Kyle Schwarber and probably NPB superstar Munetaka Murakami as the best power bats in the class. He’s atop the list of free agent first basemen, which also includes Josh Naylor, Ryan O’Hearn, Luis Arraez, Josh Bell, Paul Goldschmidt and Rhys Hoskins. There’ll be teams that prefer Murakami as a first baseman rather than at third base, which has been his primary home with the Yakult Swallows in Japan. Another NBP corner infielder, Kazuma Okamoto, is also coming over via the posting system.
Alonso’s opt-out is one of three resolved option decisions for the Mets so far. Edwin Díaz is also opting out, while A.J. Minter exercised his $11MM player option as he works back from lat surgery. They’re still awaiting official word from Frankie Montas, but he’s obviously going to lock in his $17MM player option after undergoing elbow surgery in August. The Mets could simply release Montas at that point to open a roster spot, but there’s no escaping the money. The team still has to decide on options for Brooks Raley ($4.75MM or a $350K buyout) and Drew Smith ($2MM).
Reports are, Dodgers have a better first-base-man.
Reports are the Dodgers have a MVP DH too.
I can not independently confirm however.
@O’sSayCanYouSee
MLB needs to make a new rule so that we have extra DH’s on the team. This will help improve offense as well.
O’sSayCanYouSee
Dodgers first baseman and DH are currently signed and on a parade bus. Confirmed.
Honest question here – where would the Dodgers play him? They have Freeman at first and Ohtani at DH.
They won’t even look at him. That’s what this guy comments on everything.
Obviously you dump Ohtani and that albatross of a contract.
Sorry if you don’t understand sarcasm
TJECK109: More accurately irony.
As if they cut Freeman/Ohtani for him, horrible take
It’s hard to see him going anywhere else, but I could see a team like Boston making a run at him. He could put some good dents in the monster.
Red Sox don’t need him. 1st and DH slots are both filled
Whether or not the Sox are actually interested expect Boras to engage them, The Yankees, the Angels and any other big money team he can to drive the price up. Problem is Alonso can’t run around telling everyone he only wants to play for the Mets this time
When you say the Sox have 1st filled, do you mean with Casas? I don’t have complete faith that Casas is the answer and have a feeling it is going to take him quite a bit of time to find his swing even if he is healthy. It all depends on the length of the contract that it takes to get Alonso. He certainly would give the Sox the big bat they needed.
I’m not sold on Casas either but i don’t think we’ve seen enough of him to pull the plug either. However, if he was to be traded for a TOR starter than i wouldn’t be upset either
Hey Pedro, let me clarify what I am thinking, and this is just my opinion.
I think ‘FIlled’ was a poor choice of word. I think ;Unsettled’ is better.
Casas is the big unknown, right? He has had 2 freak injuries in a row, yes, but that doesn’t really settle the potential question. Hamper it? Yes. But he is still young enough to have big potential.
Now the back up plan until that is known falls into 2 most likely ideas: Stay inhouse with Lowe/Ref or Buy Big.
Sox were just barely over the tax threshold. We all know Henry is grinding his teeth over that. So do we believe he is going to open the wallet for a Thumper when he saw his team make it to the playoffs on a budget?
I doubt it. He has been trying all along to convince us that they don’t need to spend big, they just need to spend wisely.
He is not going to flush the progress on that campaign for a big bat.
I expect the Sox will focus on a number starter. Now they will sign a broken down #4 and tell us that it’s second coming of Pedro, but we already know that.
So they’ll resign Ref and take Lowe to arb (or work out a 2 year at a lower rate.
Just my opinion, here.
Rsox, Casas has less trade value right now than Yoshi. For good or bad we’re stuck with him. But he is cheap, and like you said, he’s future is still unknown.
I see the cubs making an attempt to sign him
Pete opted out as soon as the Season ended as the Mets choked once again on the last day to the Marlins ( a Met tradition ) Lol Mets.
What did the Mets ever do to hurt you? What classy team do you root for?
Always struck me as a little odd that Alonso is the one guy that Cohen isn’t willing to shower money on. I wonder if there’s some personal animosity. Cohen loves to lose money on that team, but Alonso seems to be the one exception.
CaseyAbell: Sure, like $30 million for the season was peanuts and pocket change.
For that team $30 million is nothing. The estimates are that Cohen lost at least $250 million on the Mets this year. But for some reason he gets tightfisted when it comes to the franchise home run leader. A little strange.
Yeah but he had to go through some media fire hoops first, and in the end only got the one year. Cohen had no problem going big for Soto, verlander, Scherzer, Diaz, Nimmo.
Not analogous: Verlander and Scherzer were short-term deals. Soto and DIaz are absolutely elite in a way that Alonso will never again be. Nimmo didn’t get big dollars, just a long deal.
The comment was about was he didn’t squabble with them. Nimmo got his long term deal, not the short opt out. Scherzer and verlander were handsomely paid , record setting. Soto and Diaz are elite and got elite contracts. He courted these guys. Pete is and was the top 1B available
Casey- actually Cohen was the one person in the organization that wanted to sign him, even flying to meet him and make the final offer. Didnt enjoy dealing with Boras though
Its these analytics driven GMs that devalue the power hitting first baseman. They ignore the reality of a guy hitting 30+ hrs every year. Mets GM Stearns signed Rowdy Tellez as his 1B lol while in Milwaukee
As much as I would love to have Alonso on the Red Sox, they missed their opportunity and they should have locked him up last year in a down market instead of signing Bregman. Thats said, if they can get him on a high aav 2 or 3 yr, do it asap
I think the Mets probably end up letting him walk. He’s been a very good player on a fringe team, but I don’t think he’s the difference between the playoffs and not for the Mets. I don’t see him sticking at 1B over the course of his next contract and Mets will probably move Soto to DH at some point.
I think between McNeil, Vientos, Baty and Jett Williams they’ll have infield options.
Willis, I agree they let him walk rather than meet his inflated expectations. But I can’t understand your logic re infielders. You’re talking about infielders vs a 1st baseman. Different positions. 1B requires more offense – a lot more – than the other IF positions. McNeil is fading. Vientos is still very questionable after his regression last year. Williams has not arrived yet, we do not know when he will, and we don’t know that he will actually stick as a major leaguer his first time up. Not one of those guys is an answer for 1st base, the team also lacks a DH, and where is the infield depth in that equation?
I’m sure they’ll be active in FA.
You could build an expansion team out of all these guys and call the team The Opt-Outs.
I believe that is indeed the name of Scott Boras’ squad. The league runs from Jan -April.
Luis Arráez gets mentioned? Anyone offering him more than $10m per season needs to get their head examined. He’s had 2 mediocre seasons in a row and shows no signs of suddenly getting younger.
If he leaves the Mets then they must blow that team up. Losing the heart and soul of that ballclub nothing on that club matters. Start a complete rebuild. If Lindor and Soto don’t want to be part of that then they must be traded as well.
Trading Lindor and Soto is MLB the show video game stuff, simply not a thing in the real world to many moving parts to a trade like that. It would need to be some once in a lifetime stars align type stuff.
@towinagain This is a bait post to draw angry/snarky comments. Some fell for it…
For some crazy reason Boras recently stated the Reds would be a good fit…
Alonso’s bat just fits Baltimore’s lineup too well for them to not make an offer here. This is the legitimate RH power bat that lineup needs. Between the DH, 1B and C position you have Alonso, Basallo and Adley.
Mayo started coming on a bit at the end of the season but they need to be making win now moves. They need a starter, a legitimate RH power bat and a bullpen arm as priorities. They could use two starters and a couple of arms for the bullpen but the extra starter and bullpen arms could be acquired at the deadline if needed.
This would be a win now move and I thought they should have made an offer to him last season as well.
It’s almost like Pete Alonso’s agent is a veteran who is willing to infer a high spending team is interested in his client to drive the market up.
But Scott Boras would never do that…
Mets need to sign alonso. 5 year $150 million. Part time 1b and part time DH.