Pete Alonso and Ron Darling Credit: © Sam Navarro-Imagn Images / Mitch Stringer-Imagn Images / MLB Network
By Sam Neumann on

Pete Alonso is now a member of the Baltimore Orioles.

For a New York Mets announcer like Ron Darling, that feels weird to hear. Alonso is the type of player you’d think would stay with the same team his entire career, but that’s becoming few and far between, especially in Queens, given that Brandon Nimmo had already been shipped out this offseason to the Texas Rangers.

Alonso, who reportedly inked a five-year, $155 million deal with the Orioles, felt like a player who knew he was gone. In the immediate aftermath of the Mets missing the postseason excruciatingly after collapsing from being the best team in baseball in mid-June, Alonso announced his intentions to opt out of his deal.

He was seeking a long-term commitment, and he found it in Baltimore. The Mets, according to The Athletic’s Will Sammon, didn’t offer Alonso a contract as they felt his market value had finally exceeded what they were comfortable giving him. That doesn’t mean they didn’t discuss a contract with Scott Boras. It just means once they realized where the market was headed, they decided not to play ball.

But that’s semantics. The real story is what this says about where the Mets are as an organization and what they think of the core that’s been there for the last several years. Edwin Díaz left for the Dodgers on a three-year, $69 million deal the day prior. Then, Alonso followed him out the door.

Darling, speaking on MLB Network’s coverage of the Winter Meetings, captured how jarring the last few days have been for Mets fans.

“I’m flabbergasted. I’m just, you know, the Díaz news was shocking, but you know the Dodgers get whatever they want,” Darling said. “But we reported yesterday that Pete, who lives in Tampa, was going to drive over here and meet with the Red Sox and meet with the Orioles. The Orioles were all in on Kyle Schwarber; that’s how Schwarber got the money from the Philadelphia Phillies, and they’re not messing around. The Orioles have said they want to land a big whale, and they did in Alonso.”

Baltimore is getting a power bat who can still hit the ball as hard as anyone in baseball. Alonso hit .272 with 38 home runs and 126 RBI last season, earning his first Silver Slugger Award. The defensive limitations at first base are real, and he’ll probably end up at DH by the end of this deal, but the Orioles aren’t paying him for his glove. They’re paying him to drive in runs, and he’s done that consistently his entire career.

The Mets let him walk because they didn’t want to commit five years to a 30-year-old first baseman whose defense has declined and whose best position moving forward is DH. That’s a reasonable decision from an organizational standpoint. MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand reported the Mets were hesitant to go beyond three years internally.

“You’ve now paid, unless you get a bat, Juan Soto to walk 150 times a year. That’s what you’ve done,” Darling said. “These last two days have to really be hard on Mets fans.”

He’s right about both things. The Mets need someone to protect Soto in the lineup, and watching Alonso leave after Nimmo and Díaz is brutal for fans who’ve been invested in this core. But the Mets seem to have made a calculated decision that keeping these players wasn’t worth the cost. Now they have to prove they can build something better. So far — and it’s only Dec. 10— they haven’t.

About Sam Neumann

Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.

View all posts by Sam Neumann