For the second year in a row, Pete Alonso is poised for free agency.
And for the second year in a row, the fan-favorite first baseman’s future with the Mets was a talking point during David Stearns’ end-of-season press conference.
Stearns, the Mets’ president of baseball operations, addressed the media at Citi Field on Monday, a day after Alonso said he planned to opt out of his contract this winter.
“Pete is a great Met,” Stearns said. “He had a fantastic year. I said this last year and it worked out: I’d love to have Pete back, and we’ll see how the offseason goes.”
Alonso re-signed with the Mets in February on a two-year, $54 million contract, with the second season being a player option for $24 million.
The 30-year-old slugger then delivered one of the best seasons of his career, hitting .272 with 38 home runs, a team-high 126 RBI and an .871 OPS in 162 games.
In August, Alonso became the Mets’ all-time home run leader.
“Every single day, it’s just been a pleasure coming to work and putting on the orange and blue,” Alonso said Sunday after the Mets finished an 83-79 season and missed the playoffs. “I’ve really appreciated [the Mets] and been nothing but full of gratitude every single day. So I mean, yeah, nothing is guaranteed, but we’ll see what happens.”
Complicating Alonso’s situation is that MLB teams have become more and more reluctant to sign power-hitting first basemen in their 30s to long-term contracts.
Stearns said Monday that the Mets’ team defense wasn’t good enough this year and that the team would “have to be open-minded on our position-player grouping so that we can improve our run prevention.”
Asked if he sees Alonso as a first baseman or as more of a designated hitter, Stearns said, “I think how the exact roster construction hypothetically fills out, we’ll deal with that as we get into the offseason.”
Last offseason, Mets owner Steve Cohen said the Alonso contract negotiations were tougher than those for Juan Soto, whom he signed to a 15-year, $765 million contract. Alonso and Soto are both represented by agent Scott Boras.
On Monday, Stearns was asked whether having gone through last year’s negotiations with Alonso could help this year’s.
“I don’t think I can sit here and speculate what’s gonna happen with [the] Pete Alonso negotiation this time,” Stearns said.
