Will Mets suit David Stearns watch Pete Alonso leave town next?
New York Mets president of baseball operation David Stearns speaks to the media before a game against the Philadelphia Phillies at Citi Field on Friday, Sep. 20, 2024 in the Queens borough of New York City. Credit: Jim McIsaac
ORLANDO, Fla.
The Mets traded Brandon Nimmo, lost Edwin Diaz to the Dodgers and could be on the brink of saying goodbye to Pete Alonso, too.
Although none of those developments precludes president of baseball ops David Stearns from building a contender in Flushing for the 2026 season, there’s reason to wonder about this winter’s strategy. And does making the Mets a serious October threat again have to come at the expense of the team’s most popular players?
Stearns had no problem sacrificing Nimmo, the longest-tenured Met, for the sake of his run-prevention mantra. But Diaz bolting Tuesday for the Dodgers came as a shock, especially due to the terms: a three-year deal worth $69 million.
If that sounds perfectly manageable for a franchise funded by Steve Cohen’s billions, you’d be right. According to a source, the Mets had their own three-year, $66 million offer on the table, and were willing to go higher — but Diaz left for L.A. without asking for a last/best bid from his former team.
I don’t blame Diaz for the decision. Who wouldn’t want to play for the Dodgers? The back-to-back defending champs have a star-studded roster, limitless financial resources, perfect SoCal weather and probably give Diaz the best shot at winning a World Series ring over the next three years.
But I also had predicted that Diaz, given his comfort and success amid the trumpets in Queens, was a solid bet to stay. The Mets were overly generous the last time around in giving Diaz his original five-year, $102 million deal and figured to satisfy him again financially, as long as the contract length was reasonable.
Instead, Stearns & Co. were stunningly trumped by the Dodgers — not unlike their own swipe of Juan Soto from the Yankees a year ago — as it turned out Diaz was more than ready to leave Flushing (and the record AAV for a relief pitcher definitely helped grease those tracks). That’s a tough one to swallow for a franchise that had envisioned building an East Coast version of the Dodgers, only to be served another painful reminder they’re nowhere close yet.
Could Diaz’s defection have been prevented? Tough to say. Stearns refused to discuss Tuesday’s deal, hiding behind MLB’s tampering rules because the contract was not yet official, so we’re not exactly sure how far the Mets were willing to go.
But this we do know: Diaz not only was third on the team’s all-time saves list, he had become a ninth-inning rock star, transforming every Citi Field save opportunity into a trumpet-blasting, strobe-flashing extravaganza. Now that’s gone, and the Mets are in serious danger of facing the same grim reality with Alonso, too.
Even if the Mets choose to extend their boundaries for Alonso, because Cohen can’t bear another fan favorite ducking out, they have to be worried about him leaving anyway. Shedding Nimmo, Diaz and Alonso in the same offseason would be a rough to way to ring in the holidays. But when I asked Stearns how much their popularity factored into potentially keeping them around, it didn’t sound hugely significant to him.
“I can’t tell you I know exactly how to weigh that,” Stearns said. “I think we do our best to weigh the full impact of any player on our team, in our organization, and we make the best decision we can.”
The Mets’ process evidently wasn’t enough to retain Diaz. Whether that stemmed from the overhaul of the coaching staff — including the firing of pitching coach Jeremy Hefner — or the uncertainty involving a roster that crashed and burned last season, the bottom line is that Devin Williams, recently signed to a three-year, $51 million deal, will now be the Mets closer, minus those fun trumpets.
But Williams was the backup plan, a leverage play against the possibility of losing Diaz — something the Mets seemed confident wouldn’t happen. Although Stearns isn’t the type to get shaken by these setbacks, he better have an alternate blueprint ready. Jettisoning Nimmo for Marcus Semien was his own choice, but a bullpen without Diaz is a major downgrade, and it’s going to be difficult to spin an Alonso departure as a minor bump in the road to a World Series.
As bleak as that scenario sounds, Stearns won’t go crazy with Cohen’s cash just for the sake of nostalgia. After the way Alonso’s negotiations dragged out to February last winter, Stearns’ indifference is showing again in the pace of these talks, and the Polar Bear turned up the heat this week by visiting with a number of suitors at the winter meetings in Orlando.
“Righthanded power is a commodity,” said Scott Boras, Alonso’s agent. “A guy that can play on the dirt is a commodity. And all the teams we met with, not one doesn’t want Pete to play first base. There’s a lot said about his defense, but we’re learning it’s very positive because they don’t have many first basemen that can play every day in the field and carry the offensive thrust of it.”
The Mets had Alonso for seven years and 264 home runs, yet Stearns doesn’t seem in any hurry to sign on for more of the same. The troubling part, however, is they wanted Diaz and still couldn’t keep him.
“I’m very optimistic where our offseason is headed,” Stearns said.
An integral piece of that offseason just went to L.A. on Tuesday. And whether Stearns chose to acknowledge it or not, that’s going to sting for a while in Metsville.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
