No one can say that the New York Mets had a successful 2025 season. In fact, this past campaign was a total trainwreck for the Mets. After such a promising start to the campaign, what with Juan Soto flourishing in his first season in Queens, they sputtered towards the end of the season and lost out on postseason qualification — with the Cincinnati Reds overtaking them for the final Wild Card spot by virtue of winning the tiebreaker.

After the Mets embarrassingly bowed out of postseason contention, first baseman Pete Alonso wasted no time opting out of his player option for the 2026 season worth $24 million. Alonso bet on himself after a long stint in free agency last year and ended up signing a shorter-term, two-year, $54 million contract, and he’s now looking to cash out after a successful 2025 campaign.

Last season, Alonso had a bit of a bounce-back in form. He tallied 38 home runs and 126 runs batted in on a slash line of .272/.347/.524. An OPS of .871 with that kind of power production is always going to net a heftier sum than $24 million on a one-year deal, and at 30 years of age, there might be no better time for him to cash out.

Alas, it’s not quite clear if it will be the Mets that bring him back. But at the very least, the franchise is known for having ridiculously deep pockets, so they should have the money to retain Alonso. The question now is, do they even want to?

If they do, the Mets may have to pony up this much cash to ward off any other potential suitors for the 30-year-old slugger.

Mets pony up $144 million contract for Pete Alonso in free agency

Considering how much cash the Mets have splashed over the past few years, one would wonder just how much leeway they have left in the player payroll. Perhaps they would be more wary of handing out long-term deals involving exorbitant contracts, and this was very much seen in their decision last year to bring Alonso back on a more modest two-year, $54 million contract.

The contract projections for Alonso are all over the place. Some have him projected to sign a contract around $140 to $150 million, some even have him exceeding $160 million (which is far-fetched), and a few even have him signing a deal worth a total of $110 million over four years (he should be prioritizing the years on his next contract, so this may not be feasible).

Alas, rumor has it that the Mets will be prioritizing bolstering their pitching staff however they could. They’re even setting their sights on someone like Tarik Skubal, who is arguably the best starting pitcher in MLB at the moment.

Allocating resources towards the starting rotation is the smart move for the Mets; they went through so much rotation turnover last year amid injury woes to the likes of Kodai Senga and Sean Manaea, and having a legitimate ace in the mold of Skubal would go a long way towards pushing them back to contention.

This is not to say that Alonso is not an important piece of the Mets roster. He was their second-best hitter last season (according to the wRC+ stat), and his contributions last season were worth 3.6 fWAR. He is also so consistent from the plate and is very durable; he hasn’t played in fewer than 152 games over a full season, and he’s hit 34 or more home runs in each of those seasons (with the exception of the COVID-19-shortened 2020 campaign).

The Mets now have to weigh whether they have room in the budget to add a frontline starter while keeping Alonso. But Alonso is a beloved member of the team, a homegrown talent who was drafted by the team in 2016 and has been nothing but productive since. Considering the uproar from Mets fans towards the way they ended last season, would upsetting the fanbase further be something this ownership group wants?

Whatever the case may be, a six-year deal worth $24 million per annum ($144 million total) should be a fair contract for the Mets to offer Alonso. It provides extra security for Alonso, as this deal will take him to his age-37 season. With the Mets being reticent to go all-in on Alonso, this kind of deal is a good compromise — providing Alonso with security and long-term money, while New York doesn’t need to spend as much in total when they already have so much money tied up to Soto.

Alonso may want to shoot for the highest AAV, which is fair. But for a Mets team with other priorities, this should be the best contract that they put on the table.