A quiet number can tell you a lot if you stop and sit with it for a moment. Take 112, for example. That was the New York Mets’ team wRC+ in 2025, the fifth-best mark in baseball, and a reminder that this lineup, despite its mood swings, could go toe to toe with anyone when it found its rhythm. The Mets weren’t always crisp or cohesive, but when the offense clicked, it felt like watching a match dragged across dry brush. They could burn through opponents in a hurry.
And at the center of so many of those fires was Pete Alonso.
He wasn’t just one more slugger in a deep order. He was the muscle, the heartbeat, and the name opposing pitchers circled twice. Thirty-eight home runs, a 141 wRC+, 126 runs driven in. The numbers still pop even after years of getting used to them. He opted out after the season, betting that a strong platform year and the early-market fireworks from Josh Naylor’s five-year, nearly $100 million deal would help him secure the kind of long-term stability he couldn’t lock down last winter. It’s a reasonable bet, and the Mets know it.
A Star With Leverage, A Team With Limits
For all the offensive thunder Alonso brings, the Mets have drawn a line internally. They want him back, just not on the terms he’s chasing. It’s not a mystery why. He turns 31 on Opening Day, a point on the aging curve when long-term deals for power hitters can look brilliant for two seasons and burdensome for the rest. The Mets remember what long contracts for sluggers can turn into. They’re trying to pay for future production, not for the memories he already cemented.
That’s a tricky stance when the player in question is the franchise’s home run king. Alonso’s 264 career blasts aren’t just a stat. They’re a connection point between the team and its fan base, a living timeline of moments people can replay in their heads. Removing that presence from the lineup doesn’t just leave a roster hole. It leaves a feeling.
The Weight of a Voice That Knows the Job
Maybe that’s why Keith Hernandez chose to speak up again. Hernandez was never the type to throw around heavy-handed declarations, so when he calls bringing Alonso back “very imperative,” it lands differently. He knows first base in New York better than almost anyone. He understands how hard it is to anchor a team in this market, to carry the expectations, to absorb the pressure and still hit the pitches you’re supposed to crush.
Hernandez also understands scarcity. There aren’t many hitters like Alonso, and the Mets don’t have an Alonso replacement sitting in a side closet somewhere in Port St. Lucie. Not even Naylor, productive as he is, replicates the threat level Alonso brings to every at-bat. You can build lineups in different ways, but replacing a singular force is its own challenge.
A Franchise at a Crossroads
The Mets like to say they’re building a sustainable winner. That means being disciplined, avoiding sentimentality, and protecting themselves from contracts that age poorly. But sustainability only works if you maintain the stars who actually move the needle. Alonso is one of those stars, and losing him would test how much offensive firepower this roster truly has behind the curtain.
The Mets’ offense was dangerous in 2025, good enough to hang with championship contenders. But strip away Alonso and everything shifts. The protection changes. Pitchers game-plan differently. The run-scoring machinery doesn’t hum quite the same.
None of that means the Mets have to give him five years. But it does mean they’ll need to decide how far they’re willing to stretch to keep one of the most productive hitters in the league wearing their uniform. Alonso has made his case. Hernandez has made his plea. The market will make its push soon enough.
The question now is simple: do the Mets let their lineup lose its loudest voice, or do they find a way to keep the power plugged in for a little longer?
More about: New York Mets
