With a 4-4 game last night, Pete Alonso has surpassed the 4 WAR threshold.
I get moving Nimmo but letting Pete Alonso walk was dumb as hell
Resigning Alonso is the easiest slam dunk you can get as a manager and David Stearns somehow screwed it up
Especially since the replacement he had lined up was (checks notes) Mark Vientos
Technically the replacement was supposed to be an often injured, former PED user in 33 year old Jorge Polanco who was coming off of a career season.
I forgot Polanco got PED suspended that time lmao
Still fuckin insane that was the plan
And never played first base
It’s not that hard, Scott
Tell em Wash
It’s incredibly hard
Steve Cohen did some interviews in February.
He admitted that Alonso wanted to come back, having already offered to play more DH and negotiate on years. Boras’ team called him during the winter meetings to give the Mets a chance to bid. He wanted to bring Pete back, but Stearns had asked that he allow him to do his job, so he left the decision to him. Stearns chose to ghost Boras’ team and never called them back, so Pete went with the Orioles’ deal.
The whole thing was just handled so disrespectfully. I don’t think fans would be nearly as upset if the Mets made an offer and Alonso turned it down.
Crazy our insider trading casual baseball fan owner knows more ball than Stearns.
I can see the hesitation to inking up Pete long term but keeping a franchise favorite on your team for their whole career is good business. It’s not like Cohen couldn’t have eaten a bad deal either
Yeah as much as Sterns did well with the Brewers he had a few players he just handled so poorly. Dealing with Boras must suck but still need to do whats best.
Stearns taking a bit out of Cashman’s playbook where he has the backing of an owner willing to spend, but wants to make shrewd moves no one sees coming in order to look like a genius. If that fails, just spend your owner’s money some more. Cashman hasn’t been this much of a failure, but hard not to notice the similarities.
I think you’re mistaking Steve Cohen interviews with Scott Boras interviews. I haven’t found any sources that have mentioned Cohen saying anything about Pete telling him he’d be a DH.
Cohen did interviews with Howie and others. He talked at length about leaving the decision to stearns, the Boras’ call, etc
Re-signing
We can recreate his value with 2 shortstops and 2 second basemen 3 of which are gonna be over 30
I personally disagree.
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Nimmo is also underperforming his peripherals and with Soto being injured, the lack of a fixture at DH, Marcus Semien being terrible, and Luis Robert being non-existent until recently, turns out getting rid of him was a bad move as well.
Two important bits of context-
Brandon Nimmo explicitly did not want to DH
AJ Ewing and Carson Benge more than make up for Nimmo
Benge has been phenomenal, Ewing has been good.
There was a place to still get Nimmo 100+ games in the OF without compromising everyone else. Especially when considering that Ewing is also a capable second baseman.
I mean you could move Soto or Benge to DH on certain days but even so, Nimmo still probably had more value as a trade piece than an everyday player for the Mets
Clearly not if what they received back was the corpse of Marcus Semien lol.
Stearns could have gotten a player that wasn’t Marcus Semien from that trade, he just botched the negotiation and scouting
It was a bad contract swap for both sides. The Rangers wanted a guy who could still be good for a year or two, and the Mets wanted fewer years remaining so they can be flexible sooner. Both teams got what they wanted.
Yeah I’m not sure what people don’t get about this one. Both teams got more or less what they wanted out of the deal, it’s just that neither “return” is very appealing on its face.
Semien being good would have just been a bonus.
Stearns was limited by Nimmo’s no-trade clause, which he barely waived to go to the Rangers.
Big meat
El carnoso
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/2c77b175-8e40-4b57-b028-617ef733c3e4/gif#qU_QUXTE
“Fireable offense” 😂
More like the straw that broke the camels back on a very bad tenure by David Stearns.
I can’t wait for Baltimore to come to town so the whole stadium chants his name
He’s not getting fired and that’s a good thing
Brother, what has he done for your franchise 😭
Nolan McLean, Carson Benge and AJ Ewing is enough to earn him another year at least.
Ewing and McLean were drafted before Stearns’ time
And spent almost their entire development in Stearns’ system, where they proceeded to shoot up prospect rankings.
I think his critical mistake was changing too much too fast, I don’t know why Mets fans think changing things more will fix them
I very strongly agree. Long live David Stearns! May his genius roster building bless the Mets for years to come.
Average bootlicking stearnsbot. He’s ruining this franchise and you’ll lap up his slop
Pete is still one of my favorite players but acting like not signing him was about 2026 and not about 2029 and beyond is misleading as heck. He was always going to be good this year.
Yeah, we signed him for five years with the hope that we get four really good years out of him, while it’s very possible we get three or even just two.
He has that dawg in him. As long as his body is physically able to be productive he probably will
And no other team offered him 5. The only other offers he had were for 3 including from the Mets.
His biggest upside is that he’s always playing. He’s never had injury issues, so for long as he’s seeing the ball and hitting the ball, he can put up a David Ortiz-like longetivity. Problem is he has huge holes in his swing which will probably get worse very soon.
I love Pete too, I also want to point out that up until 2.5 weeks ago, it was a very standard and unremarkable season for Pete. In the last 15 games, he’s batting .500/.554/.948⁄1.502 with 8 HR and 18 RBI. It’s the best stretch of his career. The prior 15 games: .237/.286/.407/.692 with 2 HR and 5 RBI.
It’s utterly insane how hot he has been and it reminded me of a stretch he had in 2022 where he legitimately looked like a MVP candidate in May of that season.
That’s pretty typical Alonso production. Two weeks carrying a team and then 3 weeks of swinging at every pitch down and away and being an easy out.
It evens out to a good final batting line.
The big difference this year is that he’s been surprisingly good in the field.
Frustrating lol he’s gone from a -9 to a +2 in OAA in one year. Like where the hell was this Pete? They might have been willing to deal if he was giving this kind of effort on defense the last few seasons
I don’t get it. I’ve watched his entire career up to this year and he never looked like he could be a plus defender. He became a solid receiver at 1B, but not even one of the best in the league.
It seemed like the Mets, Red Sox, and Phillies all showed interest in Alonso as a DH for up to 3 seasons, and then he turned around and became a decent 1B 🤷
Acting like 2029 matters this much is equally bad.
The Mets were in a win-now window, coming off two of their best offensive seasons in 63 years. But for reasons that never made sense, they kept the rotation that destroyed them and got rid of two offensive lynchpins instead. They then replaced those offensive lynchpins with two of the worst batters in baseball, one of whom has spent most of the year on the IL, and both of whom are older than the players they punted. They also tried to play one of them out of position because they had no plan for first in the case that they didn’t sign back Alonso.
With generational talent like prime Soto on your roster, you pay a player like Pete for years 1-4, even if you believe you’ll be eating year 5. It’s what the Phillies did with Kyle. And the worst part is that they’re spending more money on the failed stopgaps than they would have, had they just brought Pete back.
He also probably wouldn’t have saved the team this year.
It was a shrewd and unpopular move, but I get it. They were worried about the cliff if/when he falls over it.
You don’t sign franchise players to a deal that expires right as you expect their production to fall off. That just isn’t how that’s ever worked.
I do understand this to an extent, but at a certain point you’ve gotta be willing to eat a bad year or two for 3 years of good production from a fan favorite. Are fans really willing to just watch all of their favorite players get treated like values on a spreadsheet?
He’ll be good for years. Everybody’s overthinking this. Stearns fucked this up royally.
Dude. The Mets are paying Bichette $42M a year.
Do you understand how post arbitration deals work in the MLB for all stars? Lol
God I love having Pete. He’s our shining star while everybody else regressed lol
Now here’s a guy who hits the baseball really hard
Yes can Pete Alonso drag the Os across the finish line to be the first playoff team to be under .500 because the AL is so weak? Find out in a few weeks.
On Toonami
This week we… grunted and powered up
Next week we’ll move 20 feet and get into position to spar
It would be more like “we shouted and charged our ki to the max” and the last 5 mins of the episode is them talking about how powerful they are now and then a cliffhanger until next week
This was also called a Steve Trachsel start
Was there last night and saw him warming up with a sledge. Never seen this before. 2 minutes after I took this picture he hit a ball past the arch.
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Nimmo used to do that too!
I have no idea if it works, but it looks cool as hell!
In theory it makes sense given how top-heavy sledgehammers are.
Salty Mets fan posts endlessly about a player not on the team anymore
Sorry this isn’t r/newyorkmets
People are allowed to actually be real here.
This dude has only ever had one season with an OPS under .800 and hit over 30 homes runs every year (sans 2020) yet it feels like all I hear is he’s going to suck soon or signing him was a mistake
Maybe one of the most underappreciated players in the game.
There isn’t any other player with his track record that people do this to. It’s wild.
A franchise in a win-now push with a surefire Hall of Famer in their prime is apparently secretely really smart because in 2029 Pete will have aged and won’t be as good of a baseball player in 2026. Even though he’s part of an archetype that ages way better than most.
It’s NY cope honestly.
He’s a quality player, on an HoF path.
May not have been the best fit with what Stearns is trying to do. I personally didn’t like the way he was treated and I know a lot of Mets fans feel that way.
I also think there are a lot of Met fans that just want to feel better about the situation so it becomes easy to pick at Alonso’s faults.
🤷♀️
I think people soured on him a little when he lost his final home run derby after all his ridiculous pregame stuff, the shots of him doing zen yoga with eyes closed before going for his round were absolutely hysterical. he is a legit player though, and continues to produce even if goofy.
Great so we’d be 8 under .500 instead of 12. So instead of zero chance at the playoffs we’d have almost zero chance.
He’s gone. Move on. It’s done.
Wrong. The Mets would be about 6 under if you account for the playing time given by Polanco and Vientos.
If you also account for the difference between Nimmo and Semien and suddenly they’re only 4 under.
Great, so we’d still have no shot at the playoffs?
It goes beyond this year too. There were plenty of reasons to make the moves that were made. Did it all work out? No but moving Nimmo cleared a path for Benge and Ewing. Alonso leaving cleared future salary and we have no idea what the CBA will look like this time next year.
Stearns messed up with Polanco. Every GM has mistakes. Plenty of reasons not to sign a 30+ RHH 1B only guy to a long term deal.
Don’t need to karma farm LOLMets on this sub when you can argue consistently on the Mets sub.
Have to imagine that with no sell off, the Mets keep Holmes and Taylor which probably keeps the team hovering around .500. So they’d be right there for the playoffs.
Trading Nimmo had nothing to do with Benge. If it did, the Mets wouldn’t have tried to acquire Robert or sign Kyle Tucker to a 5 year deal.
Sure there’s no idea as to what the CBA will look like next year but then why hamstring the team for 2027 and probably 2028 by adding a ton of unnecessary salary?
You’re deep into hypotheticals. Even if they were hovering around .500, to get to 87 wins, SDs pace, they’d have to go like 20-8 or 21-7 down the stretch and assume no one else got hot. The math would still be insane.
This same team disappointed last year and it wasn’t all the pitching. It was a maddeningly inconsistent offense that also had Alonso and Nimmo.
Trading Nimmo absolutely had to do with Benge. He was talked up constantly by Stearns dating back to last year. Lo and behold, he’s currently the best player on the team.
The team already had salary for ‘27. The deck is pretty clear for ‘28 when either a cap or extremely stringent penalties could be a thing. Or you have a clear salary sheet to build around a still young Soto.
I get the frustration, I live it too, but there are more factors at play.
So why did the Mets attempt to sign Tucker? That just doesn’t add up.
The offense was inconsistent but that had nothing to do with Nimmo or Alonso.
Because Tucker was a great bat in the middle of his prime. Benge would’ve played CF. Robert was a late addition and Ewing hadn’t played above AA yet.
You think they’d have played Jared Young over Vientos?
stearns letting him walk just so he can post a 98th percentile xwOBA somewhere else is the kind of thing that gets you chased out of town
the sprint speed’s still rock bottom but it barely matters when he’s crushing everything in sight. mets really bet the house on the wrong first baseman
They got their guy though. You’re gonna sit there and tell me Jorge Polanco isn’t at least a solid alternative????
Who signs Pete Alonso and thinks, “Get ready for some bunt singles. This guy’s a burner.”? He’s not Juan Pierre. Big dude hit ball hard. And that’s okay because big dude indeed hit ball hard.
He’s been in Baltimore for less than a full season and is already the unquestioned team leader. And he seems to be the guy on the team that wants to be here the most.
RemindMe! 3 years
You want a reminder in 3 years when Lindor is out of his prime?
Letting Pete walk was a massive mistake and any fan knows it.
you’re parading a 5 year contract 6 months in. also if Lindor is out of his prime in 3 years why is it then a good thing to have a 34-almost-35 year old Alonso with two more years on his contract ??
Because the Mets were attempting to win now. They are wasting another year of Soto and Lindor’s prime with the latter being on a window that is closing sooner rather than later.
There’s a reason why the Phillies are in contention every year, Dave Dombrowski keeps the gang together and doesn’t try to fix what already works.
the Mets are trying to “win now” EVERY SINGLE YEAR under cohen and stearns. that includes the years that would be the back end of the alonso contract. it’s very hard to spend money on extending internal talent and splurging in FA when you have albatrosses hanging around your neck. the strategy is very clear: only sign long term FA deals on generational talent and go for high-AAV low years deals for other players, while doing as much as possible to get out of any inherited bad contracts (trading nimmo for semien to get fewer remaining years so he could have more flexibility even sooner)
The Mets have the richest owner in the sport.
And that has allowed them to run very high payrolls which have consistently lost the team draft capital due to all first round picks falling 10 spots and often losing 2nds-4ths from signing free agents attached to a QO, like how signing Bichette lost the team a 2nd this year. If the Mets wanted to be a consistent contender, they need to fix the farm system, and having more draft picks gives them a higher draft pool, which allows them more creative draft strategies than they’ve been able to use the past couple years.
I will be messaging you in 3 years on 2029-08-26 19:34:38 UTC to remind you of this link
CLICK THIS LINK to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.
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I’m not sure you’ll enjoy this reminder
I mean, Chris Davis was a 3-win player in 2016, the first year of his first base contract for Baltimore. The bigger concern with Alonso coming off a strong platform was the longevity and long-term value.
Pete Alonso has nearly doubled his WAR in the last 3 weeks. That’s what happens when you hit .500 with 8 homers during a hot streak. All kinds of love to him, but if Pete Alonso was just mid at the start of August, I wouldn’t call failing to sign him a fireable offense.
To be fair, Alonso had a much larger track record than Chris Davis.
His fWAR on August 1st was 2.5. 2.3 of that having been accrued since May 1st, after a tough April while adjusting to his new team. Even on August 1st he was on track to have one of the best seasons of his career.
Stearns did that Mr. Met
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Best free agency signing of the offseason I think
Alonso is the only guy on that team that makes me nervous when he comes up to the plate
Make that two slam dunk offseason signings for the AL East 😉
Willson Contreras makes three.
Coby vs LHP is also pretty fun
I think Bregman is better. He is a little behind on war right now but he is closing fast. He is also going to sleep walk to his second gold glove.
I hope every drink David Stearns orders is room temperature for the rest of his life
Currently the second highest WAR of his career and if he finishes strong he could potentially end up matching his Rookie year.
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This contract might age better than I thought. Imagine if the Orioles don’t compete with him though.
I may be ignorant, but is it fair to give such a low arm strength score to a first baseman if he’s mainly lobbing throws to a pitcher to get an out?
First baseman are always given super low arm strength numbers and it really feels like that metric shouldn’t apply to them. Feels like it wouldn’t be a good thing to throw a ball 80mph+ 5-10 feet?
Yeah 1B arm strength is pointless to measure. Whenever a 1B gets a chance to play another position they usually have average arm strength. For example, when Vlad played 3B a few years back he actually had a cannon arm.
Is stearns still fiddling with his formulas?
Well, at least your username is apt.
I will root for this big, strong dork for the rest of his career after the Mets let him walk.
Bichette playing well would have taken a little bit of the sting out of losing Alonso but he’s been dogshit and Soto’s been hurt for most of the year so I don’t blame Mets fans for being pissed. I can’t see how Stearns doesn’t get fired so maybe that’s some solace?
“Overpaid meat bag” - david sterns probably
LOLMets
