Particularly with the recent flurry of moves we’ve seen in the MLB offseason with first basemen — whether that’s Paul Goldschmidt to the Yankees, Christian Walker to the Astros, Josh Naylor to the Arizona Diamondbacks or even Carlos Santana to the Guardians — it’s becoming more curious that the top free agent at the position, Pete Alonso, remains unsigned.
That also might be a sentiment that’s shared by his agent, the (in)famous Scott Boras.
Alonso is coming off a bit of a down year by his standards, watching his OPS drop from .869 in the 2022 season to .821 the next year and then .788 this past campaign. Yes, he still mashed 34 homers to give him at least 34 in his last four seasons with the New York Mets but, at the same time, he’s been a less efficient overall hitter of late. Of course, his postseason heroics for the Mets can’t be outweighed either.
Because of that and with his status as a fan-favorite in Queens, a reunion with the Mets to help protect Juan Soto in the lineup after paying three-quarters of $1 billion to the free agent outfielder has long made sense. Yet, there is no deal in place. And that all led to MLB insider Jon Heyman of the New York Post ($) penning his thoughts that the Mets and Alonso need to make a deal happen sooner rather than later.
That, however, wreaks of a bit of desperation on the part of Boras.
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While I won’t go so far (at least this time) to call Heyman a Boras mouthpiece, there’s no denying the fact that Heyman quite plainly has ties to the agent and seemingly always offers intel on Boras’ clients. So for him to make such an obvious connection that many have already made does seem like it would be reasonable to assume that there might be some urgency on the part of Boras and Alonso in this case.
To be sure, that doesn’t mean that the reunion still doesn’t make sense. Anyone other than Alonso at this point would represent a downgrade at first base for the Mets. However, free agency is always about far more than fit and there’s at least some chance that the price tag that Boras and Alonso are looking for doesn’t exactly align with what New York is aiming to accomplish in a deal, even for the deep-pocketed Steve Cohen.
Thus, getting a respected columnist and insider such as Heyman to urge the Mets to get something done quickly feels like Boras and Alonso could, in theory, be panicking a bit in this situation. The obvious landing spots or, perhaps more importantly, the organizations willing to pay anything close to what Boras is looking for to attain Alonso’s services are drying up. So putting pressure on the Mets to cut the check would align with that.
And to be sure, last offseason represents good reason for Boras to be panicking. The agent overplayed his hand with the likes of Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery, which led to largely less-than-desirable results both with contracts and on the field. Hell, Montgomery drug Boras over the coals and now has new representation because of it. He needed wins this offseason and, while Snell to the Dodgers and Soto to the Mets have helped with that, flopping with Alonso would be a real two steps forward, one step back type of situation.
Once again, my gut tells me that Alonso is back on the Mets before this is all said and done. It’s the most logical outcome and has been for some time. New York, however, has a bit more leverage thanks to the developing first base market this offseason, and the writing on the wall is that Boras senses that and is trying to do what he can to best flip that leverage at least marginally back in his favor.
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