Mets need to put run prevention aside when it comes to Pete Alonso

The theme of David Stearns’ funeral dirge on the Mets’ 2025 collapse was, in a phrase, “run prevention.”

They didn’t pitch well enough. They didn’t defend well enough.  But regardless of all the other factors that contributed to the $340 million mistake, in the end, you have to score more runs than the other guy, and the Mets couldn’t do that.

Which oddly brings us to Pete Alonso, responsible for driving in more runs than anyone else on the team.

The  slugging first baseman said he will exercise his player option, making him a free agent for the second time in as many years, and at first read, everyone is saying the right things. Alonso said he’d love to be back in Flushing and president of baseball operations Stearns said the Mets absolutely would love to have him back. Certainly this lovefest somehow can keep Alonso in a Mets uniform, right?

Well, not if you consider what else was said.

“Run prevention,” Stearns said.

By reinforcing the idea that they (correctly) intend to focus on run prevention this offseason, Stearns cast even greater doubt on whether the Mets will reconcile with Alonso, who, for his many attributes, is a defensive liability. Alonso’s comments, too, signaled that things were not quite simpatico.

“I loved being a Met,” he said right after they were eliminated from playoff contention. “Hopefully they appreciated me.”

Let’s say it definitively: The Mets should appreciate Alonso, and he should come back, because sure, preventing runs is important, but so is scoring them.

When looking at the Alonso situation, many people go the sentimental route. He’s a homegrown Met and so often has been the heartbeat of this franchise. He’s affable, and a little bit quirky, and he hits the ball so very far. Alonso also eclipsed Darryl Strawberry’s franchise home run record this year and has the most homers of any Met at 264.

He also played 162 games this year, including one against the Nationals on Sept. 21 that, incidentally, was the day his wife, Haley, gave birth. In the middle of a stretch run, Alonso neither took paternity leave nor announced the arrival of his son (the Mets were off the following day).

But sentimentality doesn’t win championships, and sentimentality didn’t work last year, when Stearns and owner Steve Cohen hardballed Alonso into taking a team-friendly deal. And from the sounds of it, sentimentality isn’t going to work on Alonso and agent Scott Boras this time around, either.

Cohen should bring Alonso back for one of the typical reasons a person becomes a billionaire hedge fund owner: He knows it’s good business.

Never mind that Alonso puts the proverbial fannies in the seats. He makes the team better, and though he’ll undoubtedly lose some of his prowess with age, a 35-year-old Alonso still might be a better option than anything else out there.

Entering his age-31 season, Alonso leads all of this offseason’s crop of first basemen with a 5.6 WAR. His 38 homers and 126 RBIs were tops at that position this year and outstripped his 2024 numbers. His 41 doubles were a career high.

Alonso also is very obviously aware that power-hitting first basemen have a reputation for falling off a cliff. He told me earlier this year that he’s taking pains to ensure that the mental and mechanical aspects of his offense evolve to make up for eventual limitations.

So do the Mets give that up for Josh Naylor, who’s only a year shy of Alonso and also a subpar defender (though not as poor as Alonso is)?

Ryan O’Hearn is a tantalizing option, but  he’s 32 and won’t come cheap. Does 40-year-old Carlos Santana sound good to you?

Projections have Alonso signing a deal for five or six years, and a good guess is that he'll command in the range of $150 million to $175 million. It's a lot, yes, but not unspeakably so. It's certainly true, however, that it would be easier to pay it if Alonso were better at run prevention.

Alonso takes his defense seriously and is as good at picking errant throws as anyone in baseball, but his range is a clear liability. His -8 fielding run value is tied for the worst in baseball among first basemen and his -17 outs above average are dead last, according to FanGraphs.

There are two things that can help mitigate this.

For one, focus your run prevention elsewhere: Positional versatility is a good thing, but not at the expense of winning games. Until proved otherwise, Mark Vientos did not provide enough offense to make up for his defense at third base — not when Brett Baty improved on both sides of the ball.

The outfield also is a problem. There’s nothing you can do about Juan Soto’s defense, which accounted for a -13 fielding run value, but that necessitates a defensively superior centerfielder with significant range who can steal outs for him. Tyrone Taylor was great at it and is arbitration-eligible, but ideally, the Mets want someone with a greater offensive tool — something they hoped to accomplish with the Cedric Mullins trade, though that didn't work out. Cody Bellinger, who will opt out of his contract with the Yankees, could be a very good fit.

The second one is easy, but it’ll require Alonso to sacrifice something that’s important to him. While they don’t have to do it right away, the Mets can start the transition to DH — possibly aided by promoting Ryan Clifford, the top-ranked first baseman in their farm system.

Sure, it all takes some maneuvering, and Boras  almost certainly will ensure that the Mets  pay a premium for it, but the time has come for Cohen and Stearns to show their appreciation.