MLB Trade Rumors

The Orioles missed out on Kyle Schwarber yesterday but are getting their big bat today, as ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports that they’re finalizing a five-year, $155MM deal with longtime Mets first baseman Pete Alonso. The agreement is in place with only a physical yet to be completed, Joel Sherman of the New York Post adds. There are no deferrals or opt-outs in the contract, per MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo. Andy Kostka of the Baltimore Banner adds that Alonso receives a limited no-trade clause. Alonso is represented by the Boras Corporation.

It’s the second major defection from the Mets in as many days. Edwin Diaz spurned Queens for a three-year, $69MM deal with the Dodgers just yesterday. Alonso now heads to the Orioles, with whom he met in person at this week’s Winter Meetings (which are being held in Orlando, not all that far from Alonso’s Tampa-area home).

Although bolstering the rotation has been the obvious goal for Baltimore all offseason, the O’s have also been in pursuit of a major upgrade to the lineup. They offered Kyle Schwarber the same five-year, $150MM terms to which he agreed in his return to the Phillies and have now pushed incrementally further to give Alonso a record-setting average annual value for a first baseman over that same five-year term.

Alonso, who turned 31 over the weekend, famously rejected a reported seven-year, $158MM extension offer from the Mets back in 2023. He drew a fair bit of criticism for that decision, particularly when his market didn’t develop as hoped during last offseason’s initial foray into free agency. Alonso wound up returning to the Mets on a two-year, $54MM deal that was frontloaded with a $30MM salary in 2025 and allowed him to opt back into free agency this winter.

Between that $30MM, the $20.5MM he earned in his final season of arbitration eligibility and the newly promised $155MM from the Orioles, Alonso will end up with $205.5MM over the same seven years that would’ve been covered under the extension offer he turned down.

In Alonso, the Orioles are adding one of the steadiest power hitters on the planet. He’s slugged at least 34 home runs in every 162-game season since his 2019 debut, plus another 16 round-trippers in the shortened 2020 campaign. Dating back to 2019, Schwarber (268) and Aaron Judge (285) are the only players with more home runs than Alonso’s 264.

Steady as his power output has been, Alonso needed a “rebound” campaign of sorts in order to get this type of long-term deal. While his market last offseason was surely weighed down by a qualifying offer — players can only receive one QO in their career, so that wasn’t an issue this time around — Alonso had slugged a career-low 34 home runs with an increase in strikeouts and a downturn in his batted-ball metrics. His .240/.329/.459 output in 2024 was more good than elite.

The 2025 campaign brought improvements across the board. Alonso belted 38 homers and 41 doubles (up from 31 the year prior) while slashing .272/.347/.524 (141 wRC+). He lopped two percentage points off his strikeout rate, cutting it to a roughly average 22.8%, and saw enormous upticks in his average exit velocity (93.5 mph in ’25, 89.8 mph in ’24), barrel rate (18.9% vs. 13.2%) and hard-hit rate (54.4% vs. 46.4%). Alonso struggled through a poor month of July, but as the Mets were fighting for their postseason lives (and ultimately falling short), Alonso put the team’s offense on his back alongside fellow stars Juan Soto and Francisco Lindor. From Aug. 1 onward, the “Polar Bear” raked at a .297/.339/.584 clip (153 wRC+) with 16 home runs and 15 doubles in 239 plate appearances.

Despite that Herculean finish to the season, Alonso received tepid interest from the only club he’s ever known. The Mets were reportedly reluctant to go beyond three years in their talks with Alonso, and the New York Post’s Joel Sherman reported in the aftermath of today’s agreement that they never made a formal offer once it became clear where Alonso’s market was headed. That’s surely a point of frustration for the majority of Mets fans but also shouldn’t come as a major surprise; if the Mets were going to commit to Alonso long-term under president of baseball operations David Stearns and owner Steve Cohen, that likely would have happened last winter. The Mets were only comfortable with a short-term deal then and clearly didn’t change that thinking this time around.

Alonso is the second 30-homer slugger acquired by Baltimore president of baseball operations Mike Elias this winter. The O’s also picked up outfielder Taylor Ward (36 homers in 2025) in a trade sending talented but oft-injured righty Grayson Rodriguez to the Angels. The additions of Alonso and Ward should both add an influx of right-handed power to a team that hit just .231/.297/.364 against left-handed pitching in 2025 and also create myriad trade possibilities for Elias and his staff.

It’s feasible that the Orioles simply add a prominent starting pitcher via free agency as their primary means of addressing the rotation, but their newly acquired thumpers open the space for more creativity. Alonso’s addition could make it easier to trade young corner infielder Coby Mayo, while plugging Ward into a corner outfield spot makes one of Dylan Beavers or Colton Cowser easier to include in a trade for pitching help. Baltimore’s decision to tender a contract to Ryan Mountcastle, a defensively limited right-handed slugger coming off a poor season, now looks like all the more of a head-scratcher, though. The O’s could try to find a taker willing to buy low on him or, alternatively, hope that he can bounce back and be part of the solution between first base and designated hitter.

Payroll-wise, there was always clear runway to add a major contract to the books. The Orioles have spent the better part of the past decade in a rebuild and thus haven’t been handing out multi-year deals very often. The only players guaranteed anything beyond the upcoming 2026 season are Tyler O’Neill, Ryan Helsley and Samuel Basallo. O’Neill and Helsley are only signed through 2027, and Helsley can opt out of his contract following the 2026 season. (O’Neill’s $16.5MM salary in 2027 is all but immovable after his ugly 2025 showing.) Basallo’s eight-year, $67MM extension has just an $8.375MM average annual value. His salary will sit at just $1MM in each of the next three seasons and won’t top $10MM until 2031, at which point Alonso’s contract will have already wrapped up.

Alonso adds $31MM per year to the ledger — assuming an even distribution of his $155MM — but the rest of the books are so clean that it shouldn’t impede the Orioles from future additions of note and/or extensions for prominent young players. RosterResource now projects them for a payroll just under $148MM in 2026, but the 2027 books only have $62.5MM in guaranteed money ($48.5MM if Helsley turns down his player option). By 2028, Alonso and Basallo are the only players guaranteed anything.

Alonso’s contract becomes the second-largest in Orioles history, trailing only the seven-year, $161MM contract given to first baseman Chris Davis under a prior ownership and front office regime. That contract was laden with deferrals, too, which considerably weighed down the net present value.

When considering that wrinkle, the investment in Alonso can be considered the most significant expenditure in franchise history — but it’s also just one of several steps the Orioles will take this winter. Elias is still angling to upgrade his team’s rotation, and the O’s could still use help in the bullpen. This could very well end up being viewed as the signature move of the offseason — if not the entire Elias era to date — but the O’s aren’t likely to coast from here to spring training. There’s more on the horizon.