Remember1969: The Pete Alonso Conundrum

 

The Polar Bear Conundrum

Some thoughts before the walk year starts

By now, if you don’t know that Pete Alonso will be a free agent at the end of 2024, you must be living under the rock that is on one side of Pete, on the other side of his hard place.  

There has been a lot of discussion about what to do with him – trade him now for best return, wait until the trade deadline and ship him off for prospects or just wait until the end of the year and risk losing him to free agency and getting a compensation pick in next year’s draft.

But while all those are great discussions for the fans and the arm-chair general managers, Pete himself has a few things to look at.     It has been well documented that he switched agents to Scott Boras who always encourages his players to go to free agency and prices them as high as he can to get the most money for the player (and himself). 

Recently, free agency has taken a little different look than it showed in its first 40 or 50 years of operation, particularly in the Scott Boras camp, in that more and more players are unsigned well into the offseason and even as spring training starts.   This has to give pause to Pete and his thinking.    While Alonso has a skill that is quite rare on the market – the ability to hit 50 home runs a year, he still needs to read that market and decide if Boras is doing the right thing with his clients.  

 There was recently a good article by Bill Madden in the NY Daily News with the title of “Teams not willing to play ball with Scott Boras and his ridiculous asking prices”    Link here

 If anyone thinks Pete is different, I’d argue they need to think a bit closer.    The following list of names should raise red flags: 

 (Note, there are really no good statistical comps here for Alonso, but these can be used to demonstrate the process)

Bryce Harper:   While this is 5 year old news, Harper went through a dry off season in 2018-19 with numbers like $400 or $500 million being thrown around before signing on March 2 for less than $30M per season (for 13 years).   He was much younger and much more accomplished at the time of free agency.   

Cody Bellinger:    Just signed a three year deal with the Cubs for around $80M, a far cry from his reported asking price of $200M for the former league MVP.   

Blake Snell:  The current NL Cy Young Award winner:    Unsigned, rumors are he has had only one or two offers, neither close to his $270M asking price.

Jordan Montgomery:    Made his name as a solid starter on the World Series champion Rangers in 2023.    Asking for Aaron Nola money – approaching $200M

Matt Chapman:   Name has been tossed around, but teams seem to be looking at the bad stuff  (low batting average, poor 2H2023) more than his gold glove and very good power numbers

J.D. Martinez:  Looking for a lot of dollars for a one-dimensional player, even though power is the name of the game these days.

Michael Conforto:  Pete’s former teammate found no takers and sat out a full season after declining the Mets qualifying offer.     He will probably not be the last good player to sit out a year. 

Even Brandon Nimmo who re-signed with the Mets after entering free-agency might be good guy to chat with.   I would love to hear “the rest of the story” about his FA experience (although I never will).    Being the cynic I am, I sometimes wonder if he was spooked by his pal Conforto’s situation and when he didn’t have multiple big offers by early December, decided to go the safe route.    Can Alonso learn a thing or two here?  (of course I could be very wrong here, but …)    

Are teams shying away from playing the game Boras has been so good at for 20 years and not believing there is really a mystery team out there?   Or are teams just getting smarter and thinking that paying players top dollar for their age 30 and above seasons is not the best financial plan?

 If I am Pete Alonso, I am going to look at this and do some deep, deep thinking.   When he reads that Steve Cohen says that Pete is an important part of the Mets and would like him to be a Met for life, I would probably ask him now what his best offer is and perhaps try to talk him into a bit more, but I’d think very seriously about signing that contract very soon.   Next winter could be pretty ugly.