Mets Owner Sends Message to Pete Alonso After ‘Certainly Won’ Negotiation
Agent Scott Boras may have misjudged the free agent market for New York Mets first baseman Pete Alonso. According to some reports, unrealistic contract demands made by Boras caused Alonso to go unsigned until Wednesday night when he agreed to return to the Mets — the only MLB team he has ever played for.
Ultimately, Alonso took a two-year, $54 million contract from the Mets, far less than the six years and $200 million Boras was originally reported to be demanding for his 30-year-old client.
Back on Jan. 30, former Cincinnati Reds and Washington Nationals general manager Jim Bowden predicted that Alonso was “gonna lose this negotiation. It is what it is.” And Bowden turned out to be right, at least according to Fox Sports baseball writer Deesha Thosar.
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“The Mets certainly won this negotiation with Alonso,” Thosar wrote, in a piece on Mets owner Steve Cohen’s reaction to the Alonso signing. “They simply were not going to budge on a short-term contract, which marks a stark difference from the previous execs working under Cohen.”
In Thosar’s report, Cohen — a hedge fund CEO with a personal fortune estimated at $21.3 billion, making him the 39th richest person in the United States according to Forbes — delivered a message to Alonso, now that the 2019 National League Rookie of the Year is back with the Mets for at least another season. His contract allows him to opt out after one year.
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”If he performs well, good for him, right? I mean, how fantastic is that?” Cohen said in the Fox Sports interview. “He just has to be Pete. Go do his thing. Hopefully he’s more relaxed. Not saying he wasn’t relaxed. But hopefully he can go focus on what he does, which is baseball, and enjoy the season with his teammates. Let’s go win something.”
Earlier in the free agent period, Cohen and the Mets went through three rounds of negotiations before winning a hard-fought competition to win the services of generational slugger Juan Soto — with a 15-year, $765 million contract.
But the Soto negotiations were “a walk in the park” compared to the grueling, 12-week effort to bring Alonso back for his much smaller contract, Cohen told the New York Post on Thursday.
Nonetheless, the $30 million Alonso will receive in 2025 makes him the highest-paid first baseman in MLB, at least for one season.
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