PORT ST. LUCIE — Darryl Strawberry was left brokenhearted when the Mets were eliminated from playoff contention on the final day of the regular season in 2025. His heart broke all over again a few months later when Pete Alonso signed a five-year, $155 million contract with the Baltimore Orioles, leaving the only team he had ever known.
“You just don’t leave New York to go to Baltimore,” Strawberry said Monday at Clover Park. “Don’t get me wrong, but this is New York. Baltimore is a good place, but it’s not New York.”
The franchise great is happy to be back in Port St. Lucie as a guest instructor this week regardless of who is on the team. His wife, Tracy, had health complications last year, and in December, he had his own when pain medication he was given after a dental procedure triggered an overdose. Two years after a heart attack, his heart wasn’t strong enough to handle the medication.
Now healthy, he’s getting to know the new members of the Mets, but missing the ones he saw grow up, Alonso, Brandon Nimmo and Edwin Diaz.
Alonso broke Strawberry’s record for the most home runs in franchise history last summer, departing Queens with a total of 264. Watching Alonso blossom from a minor leaguer to a slugger capable of overtaking Strawberry’s record was especially meaningful for Strawberry. Having played in New York, and having been a part of three World Series championship teams in New York, Strawberry can’t understand why Alonso, and to a lesser extent Edwin Diaz, would go anywhere else.
“They left before the miracle happened,” Strawberry said. “It’s sad, because I like Pete. He’s a good kid. To see him and Nimmo leave, and Diaz go to the Dodgers, why not try to win here? That’s my whole thing. There’s no greater place to win [than] New York. People don’t understand that because they haven’t done it.”
Strawberry does place some of the blame on the Mets. He doesn’t think the two parties should have ever gotten to a point where Alonso was on the free agent market. Alonso reportedly turned down a seven-year, $158 million offer in June 2023, but he has repeatedly denied it, and a few months later, he fired his agency that handled the offer, and hired Scott Boras.
“I think it’s a combination, I think they both could have fought harder,” Strawberry said. “In that situation, I think the biggest mistake that I saw was after they lost in Miami and he opted out. I thought if he would have just waited, and just probably said, ‘OK, well, I’ll stay at that, but give me a four-year deal,” something like that, it could have worked out.”
It might not have been that easy. Alonso, 31, continually said he wanted to stay with the Mets, but the club didn’t put in a great amount of effort to make that happen. It was clear from the start of the offseason that the Mets were done with Alonso. President of baseball operations David Stearns wasn’t comfortable giving him five years, and once the Orioles made the offer to set his market, the Mets decided to look elsewhere for first base.
The club signed Jorge Polanco to a two-year contract to fill the hole at first base, despite the fact that Polanco had played less than an inning at the position.
“David Stearns is a very intelligent person,” Strawberry said. “He knows baseball. A lot of people just credit what he has done, but what he’s done with this team, he’s got a lot of players that can play. Are some of them out of position right now? Yeah, they’re learning new things, but it’s baseball and they’re baseball players. They’ll figure it out.”
Strawberry previously envisioned Alonso having his number retired at Citi Field and joining him in the Mets hall of Fame. Growing up in an organization and becoming a great player with that team is “special.”
Staying in town when things get tough is something Strawberry finds even more meaningful because it’s something he didn’t get the chance to do. He wanted to stay in Flushing after his contract expired in 1990. Being a hometown hero in Los Angeles wasn’t what he wanted, but it was complicated by a poor relationship with the front office at the time.
Before the Mets retired his number, he tried to make good with the fans who felt he had turned his back on them by signing with the Dodgers.
“He could have broken all of the records, he could have been at the top of every offensive category,” Strawberry said. “One day, he’s going to wake up just like I did and you’re going to regret that you didn’t stick where you were at, and what you could have done, and what you could have accomplished in New York City.”
Strawberry would like to hear Alonso’s side of the story. While he knows that Alonso isn’t the type to air his grievances publicly, Strawberry would like to know if Alonso felt disrespected by the organization in any way. Maybe the two will speak privately someday.
For now, he’s just hoping the Mets heal his heart in 2025.
