The Pete Alonso Conundrum

[metirish]

If Boras can get Pete #200 million then good for them

[Frayed Knot]

I think it's entirely possible that some team swoops in and offers Pete more $$/yrs than the Mets are willing to match.

I don't have a specific team in mind but there may be one or two out there.

But it's hard to see how such a team is going to have to go near $200 mil in order to pull it off.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Pete may have had a chance at $200 million two years ago, but I don't see it happening now.

[Frayed Knot]

And, as if on cue, Puma in the Post lists the ...

- Giants, where a combo of Wilmer Flores and Lamont Wade Jr platooned last year. Was their (too?) heavy investment in Willy Adames a $ign of thing$ to come?

- Rangers, coming off a down post-WS year but still in 'win-now' mode with deGrom, Seager, and Semien as their core. Also need to replace just-traded Nathaniel Lowe

- Mariners, who have good pitching but need pop/runs and also had no set 1B-man last year

- Cardinals, need to replace Goldschmidt but don't seem keen to spend a lot

- Angels, who always seem to spend on 'name' players as a way to get to respectability rather than only doing so once they get there

... as potential landing spots for a hungry polar bear.

https://nypost.com/2024/12/24/sports/pete-alonsos-possible-landing-spots-aside-from-mets-as-options-dwindle/

[MFS62]

At this point, I don't think the $/yr is the sticking point (probably around $30 million) but the length of contract.

If Pete wants a three year opt out, I'd offer a player or team opt out clause after 3 years and see what happens.

Later

[Frayed Knot]

I'm not suggesting it's dollars per year that the Mets won't match but some combo of dollars And yearS combined.

So if the Mets offer 4 x $30 he may go elsewhere for 5 x $30, or 6 x $27, or some similar set-up that the Mets will opt not match/top.

And it's the $200 mil total (in whatever form) that I can't see happening no matter how much Boras wants to trumpet it.

[MFS62]

And it's the $200 mil total (in whatever form) that I can't see happening no matter how much Boras wants to trumpet it.

 

I agree. That would be nuts.

Later

[smg58]

If somebody else beats 3 and 90 with opt-outs, they are totally welcome to have him.

[kcmets]

I just saw a phone notification and in the link title it only said,

"Mets slugger Pete Alonso re..."

I was like, holy crap on a holiday... and I had a heart palpitation

or three. But Lucy pulled the football once again and...

[Edgy MD]

See this is how to tackle the market. Boras has a job to get two teams bidding his client up, but Stearns works it so he has two sluggers bidding the Mets down.

[ashie62]

I sincerely hope Pete doesn't get left in the cold like Mike Conforto did

It's starting to feel a bit chilly

[Lefty Specialist]

I sincerely hope Pete doesn't get left in the cold like Mike Conforto did

It's starting to feel a bit chilly

 

Conforto turned down a QO from the Mets then hurt himself. Not left out in the cold but rather stepping into a walk-in fridge and then locking the door.

[Edgy MD]

If that $90 million offer is for reals, It beats the socks off of a one-year $21.05 million qualifying offer.

[Lefty Specialist]

At this point, I don't think the $/yr is the sticking point (probably around $30 million) but the length of contract.

If Pete wants a three year opt out, I'd offer a player or team opt out clause after 3 years and see what happens.

Later

 

I'd be happy with 3/$90 or even 4/$120. Longer than that and I start to hesitate, especially the way the first base market seems to be crashing. But Alex Bregman is repped by Boras, too, so you can't play one off against the other.

[Frayed Knot]

Yeah, I don't think you have to limit it to three years less. I was mainly hoping they didn't get bluffed into five and up.

I mean, it sounds odd considering that we're coming off being giddy that they just locked Soto up for the net decade and a half.

And while that is a ridiculous length of time, at least he's 26 years old and a unicorn. Don't have to get crazy twice in one winter.

[Centerfield]

I don’t think I have what it takes to be a GM. I would have blinked by now.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Me too.

[smg58]

Yeah, I don't think you have to limit it to three years less. I was mainly hoping they didn't get bluffed into five and up.

I mean, it sounds odd considering that we're coming off being giddy that they just locked Soto up for the net decade and a half.

And while that is a ridiculous length of time, at least he's 26 years old and a unicorn. Don't have to get crazy twice in one winter.

 

Well it's one thing to open your wallet wide for an already elite player who might not have even entered his prime yet. It's another thing to do it for a 1B/DH when the market rate for first basemen who were better in 2024 has been set significantly lower.

Edited December 26, 2024 by smg58

[smg58]

I sincerely hope Pete doesn't get left in the cold like Mike Conforto did

It's starting to feel a bit chilly

 

That was on Boras, not the Mets. Like he's done with a number of other players, Boras waited and waited for a better offer that didn't come. And then Conforto got hurt and got nothing. The Mets chose not to overpay to bring their guy back just because he was their guy. And it turned out to be the right decision.

[Centerfield]

Does anything typically happen during this week between Christmas and New Year's? I'm guessing baseball execs are sitting on a beach or next to a fire or something.

The interesting thing about this lack of market is that I originally thought this next contract was an opportunity to lock up Pete for the rest of his career. It's becoming increasingly clear that this won't be the case, and that Pete is looking at going back to the market again, whether he takes an opt-out or not. I guess for him the best case scenario is for him to stay productive so he can get a Christian Walker type deal in a few years.

If I were Stearns, I think I'd be inclined to offer Pete 4 years guaranteed. 4 years, $100M, opt-out after year 1. Those four years take him to his year 33 season, and even among big bodied RH hitters, 33 can still be a productive year. So maybe the best bet is to offer 3 years/90, or 4 years/100 and see which one Pete takes. Opt out after 1 in each of those deals.

[Frayed Knot]

The interesting thing about this lack of market is that I originally thought this next contract was an opportunity to lock up Pete for the rest of his career. It's becoming increasingly clear that this won't be the case, and that Pete is looking at going back to the market again, whether he takes an opt-out or not. I guess for him the best case scenario is for him to stay productive so he can get a Christian Walker type deal in a few years.

 

It could very well end up as his final contract, even if it's one of five years or less.

1B/DH guys have to hit to keep a job so it doesn't take too much of a slip to have the phone stop ringing.

Lucas Duda had a better OPS season at age 29 than did Pete [838 OPS/130 OPS+ vs 788/123 (less power but a higher OBA)]

Lucas then slid the next year but was hitting even better in 2017/age 31 (879 OPS) when the Mets dealt him at mid-season.

Over the next two years he'd be granted FA-gency twice and released three times all while amassing < 500 PAs for his post-NYM career.

Exactly two years after the trade he played his final ML game. He was 33

Now, not saying this is a predictor of how things will go for Pete but when more one dimensional sluggers falter it sometimes goes quickly.

Keeping the possibility of that type of scenario in mind was pretty much the reason for starting this thread just a couple weeks shy of two years ago.

[metirish]

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Make of this source what you will

Translated to 3 years $90 million offer

[kcmets]

Whippoorcoob will vouch for Baerga's truthfulness and character.

[Buck4Prez]

imho Mets are sitting pretty because of Soto, they need another hitter and probably two, but they have a lot of options and ways to achieve that. And a lot of 1B have signed now, so Pete doesn't have many options. It'll probably get done, there's some sentimentality there that makes it make sense, but Alonso probably is going to have to concede.

[Edgy MD]

The thing about looking for a firstbaseman is that everybody is a potential firstbaseman.

And everybody who is so defensively talented somewhere else that he would be wasted at first can knock some other catcher, leftfielder, or thirdbaseman over to first.

[whippoorwill]

imho Mets are sitting pretty because of Soto, they need another hitter and probably two, but they have a lot of options and ways to achieve that. And a lot of 1B have signed now, so Pete doesn't have many options. It'll probably get done, there's some sentimentality there that makes it make sense, but Alonso probably is going to have to concede.

 

I don’t think that’s fair.

[AIMrMet]

Transylvania Conundrum... Peterbilt Connect 4... Pinnochio Aqueduct... oh breadsticks... peter pan...! No, you called it 'The Pete Alonso Conundrum' right? A blip on our unforgiving hot pilaf, oh bugger, uh I mean the hot stove, yes, it's simmering real good—hang over the flames before making any cravings or shovings.

Now comes the kicker, the cojones or cobblers of my sloppy reverie. Roll it on up fellers, this here's the chewiest nut of the bunch, The PETE ALONSO CONNUNDRUM! The Roman's colosseum, the seven blocked pounders of Babylon, ain't Sui generis delivery style he embraces!

And here's the soft pretzel bit: Pete's just too bonkers at busting blimps in mid-air. Heck of a sweatband collector, but seems to forget wrapping up his batting gloves in special pickle wrappers every Full Moon Thursday. Base-poodles!

What's more, the Cruella De Vil stupid, sorry I mean bastion unwise I mean hot stove, sez the Mets can have only one spiral helix shaped French-toast rotating 5.6 times per breakfast. Eh, I mean a limit of 'Disgruntled Kangaroo-PogoJump' Mikitas under one merry-go-round. Basically, but not in SVG circles... Or crayon lines…Or they have to sustain Venus orbital booms. Doesn't make forty-dimensional mathematical Pi-ents, does it? Neither does another round of Hazed Confused IPAs. And another. Are we there yet?

[Lefty Specialist]

Word.

[metirish]

[TWEET]

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If you bought a house !

[Lefty Specialist]

Did that when I bought my current house. It worked.