MLB Community’s Jim Duquette sounded assured final week that the Toronto Blue Jays touchdown free-agent first baseman Pete Alonso was “out of the equation” after Toronto agreed to a five-year deal price not less than $92.5M with outfielder Anthony Santander.
Throughout Monday’s version of the SNY “Baseball Evening in New York” program, MLB insider Andy Martino urged the Blue Jays won’t match what the New York Mets already supplied Alonso throughout what Mets proprietor Steve Cohen not too long ago known as “an exhausting dialog and negotiation” course of.
“The ultimate Mets supply that Alonso turned down, that is going to be robust for him to beat with the Blue Jays,” Martino defined. “That was the $70M that we talked about for 3 years, extra deferred cash. That might have been an actual win, in all probability, in what the last word greenback determine would have appeared like for Alonso. Given what the Blue Jays gave Santander, which was within the 60s after the deferred cash, [Alonso] might be not going to get pretty much as good a proposal from Toronto as they’ve already gotten from the Mets and turned down.”
Cohen raised eyebrows when he revealed throughout this previous Saturday’s “Amazin’ Day” fan occasion that he did not “just like the buildings which are being introduced again to us” amid contract talks with Alonso’s camp. Per SNY’s Phillip Martinez, Martino reported final week that the Mets’ newest three-year proposal that included opt-outs was price “greater than $70M” whole in “deferrals and stuff.”
Martino added at the moment it is unclear if that supply remains to be on the desk within the occasion that Alonso experiences a change of coronary heart and contacts Cohen immediately about placing pen to paper on a contract.
Whereas quite a few tales have linked Alonso with the Blue Jays, San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Angels, there stays no indication any of these groups are in a rush to equal or higher what the Mets supplied the 30-year-old slugger who so far has solely performed for the Amazins’ throughout his MLB profession.
“I’m nonetheless getting an expectation that if he comes again, it’ll take some time,” Martino mentioned concerning the Mets probably re-signing Alonso. “It looks as if we may simply get to spring coaching the place that is nonetheless a subject, and if Pete re-signs, it might be when the Mets are already in camp. There’s no motive for the Mets to hurry.”
Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns will not bid towards himself concerning Alonso, however each Stearns and Cohen had been reminded throughout Saturday’s occasion that many paying prospects need the “Polar Bear” to be a part of a 2025 lineup that may also function All-Star outfielder Juan Soto. Assuming Martino is right, it seems the Alonso saga may drag on by means of not less than the center of February.
