Gregory Fisher-USA TODAY Sports
Extending star first baseman Pete Alonso should be the next item on the to-do list for the New York Mets.
Friday proved to be a busy day for the Mets after they agreed to terms on a four-year, $50 million extension with Jeff McNeil. As reported by Jeff Passan of ESPN, the deal features a club option for a fifth year that would take the total value to $63.5 million.
Locking down McNeil, the reigning major league batting champion, to a long-term deal was a key piece of business. However, the front office should now already be working on an extension for Alonso.
Like McNeil, Alonso is a homegrown talent having been drafted by the Mets in the 2016 MLB June Amateur Draft from the University of Florida. And, like McNeil, Alonso has established himself as a key piece of this offense. He’s also continued to trend in the right direction.
The slugger put together a stellar 2022 season in which he blasted 40 home runs with a .271/.352/.518/.869 slash line. Alonso drove in 131 RBI, which led the majors and also set the single-season RBI record in Mets history. He ranked fourth among first baseman in fWAR (4.0) in 2022, first in home runs and RBI, second in slugging, eighth in on-base percentage, and third in runs.
It wasn’t just 2022 in which Alonso was great, though. He’s been incredibly productive ever since his big league debut back in 2019.
Alonso is one of just 28 players in MLB history to record at least three seasons with an OPS+ of 130 or better (min. 600 PAs) within his first four years in the bigs. There’s some impressive names on that list. Plus, for further context, only two players in MLB history have hit 200+ runs in their first five big league seasons. Those players were Ralph Kiner (215) and Albert Pujols (201). Alonso has 146 homers in four seasons (including the shortened) 2020 season.
There’s further heady evidence to demonstrate why Alonso needs a long-term extension right now. Since he made his major league debut in 2019, no first baseman has more home runs (143) and RBIs (380). Only LA’s Freddie Freeman has played in more games. Alonso also owns the third-highest wRC+ (138) and total runs scored (310). As a result, the masher owns a 12.1 fWAR over that span, which ranks sixth highest among MLB first basemen.
While the stats indeed paint a pretty picture, the eye test also tells its own story. Alonso can be electric at the plate and he’s developed a habit to come up clutch in the biggest moments. For those who make the argument Alonso isn’t a big-time player, consider this. Alonso and Aaron Judge – a player many consider to be the very definition of clutch – posted the same wRC+ in high leverage situations in 2022 with a 179 mark.
Need more evidence of Alonso’s ability to deliver the goods in high-pressure situations? The 28-year-old owns a .924 OPS from innings 7 through 9 since play-by-play coverage started in 1973 (min. 500 PAs). Barry Bonds, Judge, Mike Trout, Juan Soto, Mark McGwire, and Manny Ramirez are the other players with the highest OPS in late innings.
He’s also incredibly durable, which is an underrated attribute in modern sports. Since he made his big league debut in 2019, Alonso has played in 530 out of the 546 regular season games the Mets have played during that span. That’s a staggering 97 percentage. Durability is the biggest availability after all.
Alonso doesn’t get nearly enough credit for how good an offensive force he is. He’s also very reliable and he lowered his strikeout rate to 18.7% in 2022, while his walk rate rose to 9.8%. A big presence in the clubhouse, Alonso is very much the heartbeat of this team and he’s allowed his play on the field to do his talking for him.
Granted, his major flaw remains his defense. While he’s improved considerably at first base, Alonso still ranks as one of the worst defensive first basemen in a number of metrics, including defensive fWAR, UZR, and OAA.
However, that aside, Alonso has established himself as both a leader on this team and as an elite offensive first baseman who can absolutely destroy a baseball and make an offense really tick. He possesses the innate ability to send jolts of energy through a crowd on his own. And, while he maybe doesn’t get the attention or credit he deserves, the slugger is certainly the type of player you want as a franchise cornerstone.
MMO’s Patrick Glynn looked at some comparables here when guessing what an Alonso extension could look like. It is important to remember that Alonso and the Mets settled at $14.5 million in arbitration. It was the largest number ever for a first baseman in arbitration. Given Alonso’s continued upwards trajectory, that number will only continue to rise so signing him to a long-term extension now would also be good business for the Mets.
The Mets did the right thing by locking down McNeil to a long-term contract and it was an incredibly team-friendly one at that. Alonso is just as important to this franchise as McNeil is, perhaps more so given how valuable power is in the modern game, and he deserves his own extension sooner rather than later. And, if the Mets are serious about winning now and in the future, they will waste little time in ensuring their first baseman remains part of the organization for a long, long time.
Signing Alonso to a big extension before spring training would be good business, and it would also send another clear statement to the rest of MLB that the Mets mean business.
