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There is no player we’ve talked about more on Slack than Pete Alonso (Law #14). We have a lot of Mets fans and specifically Alonso fans in there, so the debates about what the Mets should do with him, and what his actual value is, have been fierce.
Alonso hits all my stathead buttons, as a 30-year-old whose game is built around old players’ skills and who has no room to move down the defensive spectrum. At 28 and 29 he hit .229/.324/.480 for a 123 OPS+ and three wins a year, and he really has no room to decline from there while still being worth a free-agent deal. Alonso is worth more to the Mets than he is to any other team -- he’s incredibly popular -- but the Mets have Mark Vientos ready to slide to first base and a bunch of infielders -- Brett Baty, Ronny Mauricio, Jett Williams, Luisangel Acuña -- pushing for spots on the roster. He’s going to cost a new team a draft pick, and his profile is made up almost entirely of collapse risk.
If I’m the Mets, I probably see if there’s some 2/50 deal available. There’s value in keeping Alonso, though post-Soto the Mets probably have some goodwill to burn. With only about a third of the league competing for free agents, Alonso might get to March and be the odd man out. My Jake Burger comparison wasn’t an attempt to be mean -- Alonso’s skill set just isn’t very hard to find.
