First baseman Pete Alonso is ticketed for a second straight trip via free agency, as he told reporters as the regular season came to a close that he plans to opt out of the final year of his contract and return to the open market. He won’t officially become a free agent until five days after the World Series ends. The whispers about Alonso’s asking price on his return to the market are already starting to filter through. According to Mike Puma of the New York PostAlonso is expected to seek at least a seven-year contract when he returns to free agency.
It is normal for players to set the bar high in contract negotiations via free agency, but it would be a surprise if Alonso was able to secure such an arrangement. A seven-year pact would cover the slugger’s seasons from age 31 through 37, and that’s the kind of rarefied atmosphere that’s difficult for a defensively limited slugger to achieve in free will. Dodgers star Freddie Vrijman is signed through age 37, but Freeman is an MVP winner and future Hall of Famer. It’s hard to argue that Alonso is in the same stratosphere, and few other first basemen have been able to get that kind of long-term security.
Paul Goudschmidt‘s extension with the Cardinals was for just five years and $130 million, ending after his age-36 campaign, and Matt Olson‘s eight-year, $168 million contract extension with Atlanta is only guaranteed through his age-35 season. Both Goldschmidt and Olson were also Gold Glove winners for their work at first base when they signed those deals, while Alonso is viewed as one of the game’s weaker first basemen defensively by both defensive metrics and by many scouts. While Puma points to Marcus seeds And Matt Chapman As fellow Boras clients who managed to land contracts similar to what Alonso was expected to want, it should also be noted that Chapman actually signed a six-year extension with the Giants, having already been in the fold for a short-term deal similar to the one Alonso will opt out of.
More importantly, Semien was a shortstop when he signed with the Rangers, and Chapman is a multiple Gold Glove winner at third base. When it comes to financial expectations for infielders higher up the defensive spectrum, the bar is simply very different than for first basemen. That’s part of the reason why players like it Alex Bregman And Carlos Correa who signed similar short-term contracts with high average annual values in free agency to the one Alonso signed last winter, have managed to secure a higher AAV than Alonso did on a two-year pact. The same principle also applies to larger deals and helps explain why someone likes something Xander Bogaerts managed to secure a contract that will pay him out over his 40-year campaign, despite far less robust attacking numbers than someone like Alonso can offer.
Even if Alonso fails to get the seven-year guarantee he seems to covet, he can still be expected to do much better in free agency this time than he did last season. After all, he’s no longer hampered by draft pick compensation after turning down a qualifying offer from the Mets last winter. That means a team that signs him away from Queens won’t have to forfeit draft capital to bring him into the fold, and that reality will likely help his market immensely. Additionally, Alonso had a much stronger platform season this year than in 2024. This season, Alonso played in 162 games for the second straight season and slashed .277/.347/.524 with a wRC+ of 141, tying the second-best of his career in 2022.
Alonso rejected a seven-year, $158 million extension offer from the Mets in 2023. That deal would have covered the final year of his arbitration eligibility, for which he ultimately received $20.5 million. In other words, he’ll need to earn more than $137.5 million between 2025 and 2030 to surpass that benchmark. He made $30 million this year, which means he needs to beat $107.5 million over the next five seasons if he wants to surpass the value of the extension he passed on. It seems very safe to bet that he will do just that at this point.
Goldschmidt’s extension with the Cardinals, which covered his ages 32 to 36, paid him $130 million over five years. While Goldschmidt’s 145 career wRC+ at the time of that deal was much stronger than Alonso’s career 132 wRC+ entering this offseason, Alonso will enter his age-31 season when his next contract kicks in and will benefit from more than half a decade of inflation since St. Louis made that deal just before the 2019 season started. Considering he doesn’t even have to match Goldschmidt’s guarantee to beat the 2023 extension offer, it seems safe to say Alonso will lead the way in free agency this year as long as he doesn’t have to settle for another short-term deal.
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