Pete Alonso, Mets agree to two-year, $54 million contract, source says
Pete Alonso of the Mets reacts after his first-inning three-run home run against the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 5 of the NLCS at Citi Field on Friday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Pete Alonso is back, at least for now.
After a protracted winter negotiation, the Mets and Alonso, their perennial All-Star first baseman, decided to re-up their highly successful partnership, agreeing to a two-year, $54 million contract Wednesday, a source confirmed.
Alonso, who will make $30 million in the first year, can opt out of the deal after the 2025 season and become a free agent again next offseason. If he doesn't opt out, he'll be due $24 million in 2026.
Their new deal seems to be a win-win — or a win-win-win, if you count the fan base.
For the Mets, it provides another big bat for a lineup and franchise now featuring superstar Juan Soto, who signed a 15-year, $765 million contract in December. Alonso has established himself as a premier slugger and run producer over his six seasons in the majors, and now he’ll remain in the middle of a batting order — for another year at minimum — that needed another someone with his skill set.
For Alonso, it offers an additional measure of financial security; continued comfort via familiarity with the organization, city, spring training arrangements and other logistics; and an opportunity to build a legacy as one of the Mets’ best ever. With 226 home runs, Alonso ranks third on the team’s all-time home run list, behind David Wright (242) and Darryl Strawberry (252). He is positioned to break that mark with a healthy season.
And for fans, even though this isn’t the long-term contract Alonso envisioned at the start of the offseason, it keeps alive the possibility of seeing a favorite play out his career with their favorite team — a rarity in the history of a club that now stretches into a seventh decade.
Alonso’s return means the Mets have clarity at first base — and, as a result, third base. Following his breakout season, Mark Vientos is now due to stay at third; in a post-Alonso world, the Mets could have moved Vientos across the diamond.
Relatedly, the top half-ish of the lineup now looks stacked. Manager Carlos Mendoza can pencil in — in some order — Francisco Lindor, Soto, Vientos, Alonso and Brandon Nimmo. And that doesn’t factor in a potential step forward for Francisco Alvarez and a potential return to form for former batting champion Jeff McNeil and others.
The Mets and Alonso, represented by agent Scott Boras, finding common ground represented a happy ending to a lengthy free agency. In mid-to-late January, Alonso’s camp was deep in talks with the Blue Jays, a person familiar with the situation said at the time. But the big-time, nine-figure market anticipated at the outset of the offseason never materialized.
Supported by team owner Steve Cohen, president of baseball operations Davis Stearns stuck to his philosophy of not handing out huge contracts to players in their 30s.
Days before the start of spring training, Alonso settled for the front-loaded two-year guarantee — a so-called bridge contract, in the preferred parlance of Boras, allowing the client a soft landing spot with another chance the next time around. Such an approach worked out well for Blake Snell, Matt Chapman and Carlos Correa, also represented by Boras.
Alonso chose these terms over a similar three-year, $71 million offer, a source said, because the two-year version with less money overall included a higher first-year salary.
An Alonso-Mets reunion always appeared like the most logical outcome, but there were moments of doubt. Cohen said during the team’s fanfest event on Jan. 25 that “I don’t like the negotiations.”
“I don’t like what’s been presented to us. Maybe that changes,” he said. “Certainly I’ll always stay flexible. If it stays this way, I think we’re going to have to get used to the fact that we may have to go forward with the existing players that we have.
“A lot of it is, we’ve made a significant offer. I don’t like the structures that are being presented back to us. I think it’s highly asymmetric against us, and I feel strongly about it.”
Stearns said in November of the Alonso negotiations: “There’s a familiarity there, and that should help. There’s an understanding of who the player is. There’s an understanding of what the organization is and how those two sides fit. Familiarity is a good thing.”
Alonso, 30, was the Mets’ second-round draft pick in 2016, the only standout in a class headed by Long Island native pitchers Justin Dunn and Anthony Kay in the first round. He climbed prospect rankings and shot through the farm system by crushing the ball harder than just about anybody in the organization, minors or majors.
When Brodie Van Wagenen took over as general manager heading into the 2019 season, he made a promise: Alonso would be on the Opening Day roster if he was deserving. The Mets would not, they insisted, succumb to the temptation of service-time manipulation, the practice of keeping a player in the minor leagues for the start of the baseball new year for the sake of delaying his free agency by an extra year.
Van Wagenen was true to his word, setting up Alonso reaching the open market this offseason. Had the Mets waited even a few weeks to promote him, he would have had to wait until after the 2025 season to become a free agent.
But Alonso indeed made the team at the start in 2019, initially ostensibly to share time at first with former first-round pick Dominic Smith, the first baseman of the future till Alonso showed up. Alonso led the majors with 53 home runs — a Mets single-season record and major-league rookie record — won the Home Run Derby and was a near-unanimous choice for NL Rookie of the Year.
Across six seasons, Alonso was one of the few consistent attractions on a team that toggled between competitive and not in the late Wilpon and early Cohen years. He batted .249 with a .339 OBP and .514 slugging percentage. His 586 RBIs are sixth-most in team history. He also holds the franchise hit-by-pitch record with 85 (ahead of contemporaries Nimmo, McNeil and Michael Conforto).
Since his debut, Alonso is second in the majors in home runs, just six behind the Yankees’ Aaron Judge (232). He also is second in games played (846 of a possible 870), trailing only Marcus Semien of the Rangers, making him a veritable iron man by modern standards.
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
