PORT ST. LUCIE — The Mets can expect a “motivated” Pete Alonso this season.
David Stearns, the team’s president of baseball operations, used that description of the slugging first baseman Wednesday after Alonso’s two-year contract worth $54 million for a return to the Mets became official.
The deal includes an opt-out after this season.
Left unsaid was the motivation Alonso will have to produce big numbers heading into another potential winter of free agency.
Stearns cited a different reason Alonso will be motivated.
“What he expressed to us is he wants to win a World Series as a Met,” Stearns said. “He knows a big part of our ability to do that is him producing. I think Pete’s had good years the last couple of years, but not as good, not as elite, not at the standard that he set at the front end of his career. And I think he is very motivated to demonstrate that it’s achievable throwing up those kind of numbers.”
Alonso hit 34 homers and produced a .788 OPS last season, both of which were his career low for a full season.
Alonso, who turned 30 in September, could benefit from hitting in a lineup that now includes Juan Soto, who will presumably hit ahead of him in the batting order.
Stearns cast aside the notion that it was team owner Steve Cohen alone who wanted Alonso back in Queens.
Cohen last week flew to Tampa to meet with Alonso for about three hours, with Stearns and agent Scott Boras part of the discussion, a day ahead of Alonso reaching agreement with the club on the new deal.
Stearns said he wanted Alonso back.
“He makes us a better team,” Stearns said. “We’re in a spot where we feel like we’ve got a really good team. We’re trying to win as many games as possible.”
Cohen, speaking at the team’s fan fest on Jan. 25, termed the negotiations between the club and Alonso’s camp “exhausting.”
According to a source, the Mets’ initial offer was $85 million over three years that included heavy deferrals, lowering the present day value.
In the end, Alonso had the choice between a three-year contract worth $71 million and the one he ultimately accepted.
“For both sides, how we were looking at it, how Pete was looking at it, each side is going to have different objectives,” Stearns said. “And clearly, the length of contract is one objective. AAV [average annual value] is another objective and you try different structures on either side. This was the combination of AAV structure and length that overlap for both sides. I think it works well for both sides.”
Alonso’s free agency wasn’t helped by the qualifying offer he received from the Mets.
That designation meant any other team that signed Alonso would have to surrender a draft pick. Alonso will be ineligible to receive the qualifying offer in his next free agency.
The Mets saw the best of Alonso in the postseason, including his ninth-inning homer against the Brewers in the wild-card round that helped save the team from early elimination.
For whatever reason Alonso’s numbers dipped during the regular season, Stearns said the pressure of playing for a new contract probably wasn’t one of them.
“He played in New York his entire career and handled the pressure,” Stearns said. “So that, probably for me, is not a concern at all.”
