Pete Alonso had a much better walk year the second time around, which will make his market in free agency fascinating to follow.
Last offseason, with the qualifying offer attached to him to deter suitors, Alonso was only able to secure a two-year, $54 million deal that was expected to be a one-year deal after his opt-out. He went ahead and put together a 38-homer, 126-RBI campaign, and this time around, there could be no qualifying offer.
So did Alonso’s good year convince the Mets they needed to keep him around for the long haul? Or did it simply boost other teams’ confidence to give him the kind of long-term deal he sought last year, and not the Mets’?
One Mets insider believes the latter scenario is more plausible.
Pat Ragazzo, the Mets’ beat reporter for Mets on Sports Illustrated, predicted that Alonso would walk for a longer deal with a new team during Friday’s episode of the “Metsmerized” podcast.
“Should they bring him back? Yes,” Ragazzo said. “Do I think they’re going to bring him back? No. Because I think he’s going to get more years somewhere else.”
“I think somebody’s going to give him six, seven years. … He deserves the years, and somebody’s going to give it to him, and I just don’t see it being the Mets. I think they should, though. I think they’d be crazy to let him walk after the season he just had, especially when Cody Bellinger is your best backup plan, and then you have all left-handed hitters.”
From a fit perspective, it’s hard to disagree with Ragazzo, because the Mets’ second-best righty bat is either Mark Vientos, if he bounces back, or Francisco Alvarez, if he proves his summer hot streak was no fluke. And you can’t be depending on “ifs” to turn into certainties when you’re trying to erase the sting of the worst playoff collapse any team has had in at least a decade.
Alonso could still be feeling burned after the way negotiations went last winter, too. That only puts more pressure on the Mets to come correct this time if they want him back, and Ragazzo’s sentiment that they won’t offer what it takes is becoming a common one among those that follow the team closely.
More MLB: Yankees Cut Ties with 5 Pitchers in Roster Move Flurry
