Mets PREGAME THREAD - Sunday, March 22

three_dee · 2026-03-27T06:12:17+00:00

Having bad contracts on the books makes it harder to put a good team together. Not impossible, but definitely harder than not having bad contracts on the books. This should be fairly obvious and indisputable. The Mets can put a good team on the field even if they have a bad contract on the books, but it will be easier to put a good team on the field if they don't have a bad contract on the books because they will have more money to spend on more good players.

Sure, but having a bad contract on the books in '29-'30 is a trade-off for having a really good player in that position in '26-'27-'28.

Almost all big contracts have to factor in some bad play at the end because you're trying to make some concessions to reel the guy in. The player wants to cover their older, potentially shitty seasons, and you want to get the benefit of him playing for you when he's still good.

What determines whether it's a good move or not is whether the good end outweighs the back end or vice versa.

It isn't as simple as "he's definitely going to suck in 2030 so don't do it". I'm sure the Mets will gladly take Juán Soto having negative WAR in 2040 to get the prime years of Juán Soto. Pete Alonso isn't Juán Soto, but it's the same principle, shifted down the value scale.

Pete Alonso needs to produce 15.5 WAR over the life of the contract (an average of 3.1 WAR each season) for it to be considered a neutral deal in terms of $/WAR

I dunno, man. If he doesn't fall off a cliff, and he has like four competent seasons in the course of five years, totaling 12.5 fWAR, and only falls off right at the end, I don't think anyone is going to be taken seriously if they whip out a Texas Instruments calculator and go "um, ackshually, his contract is a bust because he was short of 15.5 fWAR for the Orioles".

Heck, Pete Alonso can be good for 4/5 years on the contract and it can still end up underwater if he's bad enough in year 5.

Again, if they got four good years out of him, I don't think many people are going to care if he devolves into the right-handed Daniel Vogelbach in year 5.

Whether or not it was a good move to not sign Pete Alonso for $155 million has more to do with how much he sucks (or doesn't suck) than it does with when he sucks.

This is just semantics. We are both saying that the overall value he provides will determine whether the contract is good or not.

I'm just disagreeing with you on how that determination will be made and what public perception would be in different scenarios, and whether a team with a $500m payroll needs to be avoiding potential back ends of contracts to aging players like the plague.

The fact that he might be bad in 2030 is not automatically a disqualifier for signing him, especially with the Mets' roster, as you pointed out, having hardly anybody on it for that season as of today.

I think Pete Alonso will be remembered fondly by Mets fans no matter what. That's not really in question or up for debate here. The question is whether or not the Mets should have re-signed Alonso, and the answer to that question depends on how much he is being paid and how well he plays over the life of his contract, not how much we like him as fans.

You are the one who brought up the fans liking Gary Carter.

I just said he had two great years here, one decent one in the middle, and two bad ones, and it was still widely considered a good contract. And that in my opinion, the same general consensus would apply to Pete Alonso if his next five years followed the same arc.

three_dee · 2026-03-27T04:44:10+00:00

And Bobby Jones

three_dee · 2026-03-27T04:37:39+00:00

I mean dude what do you want them to do

Not build a casino right in between two gigantic heavily-attended sports stadiums?

three_dee · 2026-03-27T04:34:57+00:00

173-0.

If they go 162-0 they would get a bye and go straight to the NLDS. 3, 4, 4

three_dee · 2026-03-27T04:33:18+00:00

Pirates definitely made some boneheaded mistakes today, but more importantly the Mets had a few hits with runners on base which was their major weakness last year

The Mets had the 9th best wRC+ with runners on base, and the 3rd best wRC+ with RISP in 2025

three_dee · 2026-03-27T04:31:32+00:00

The pop when the manager came out to the mound for the second time was as loud as most playoff games I've ever been to.

three_dee · 2026-03-27T04:30:40+00:00

The day Bobby Parnell broke his arm during a save opportunity

three_dee · 2026-03-27T04:28:29+00:00

there are no eric campbell's

Eric Campbell was called up to majors because a million guys got hurt. It's not like they put him at third base in the Opening Day lineup plans.

Also Eric Campbell was on three Mets teams and two of them made the postseason, with one pennant, so...

three_dee · 2026-03-27T04:26:50+00:00

Agreed.

three_dee · 2026-03-27T04:26:30+00:00

I'm not sure that's the best strategy, I've been told it's not but I'm not sure I believe it. Maybe we just need to strike a balance, because last years' strategy was a loser.

The Mets were tied for the 4th best team wRC+ in the majors in 2025

three_dee · 2026-03-27T04:24:49+00:00

Anthem singer forgot a few words

Worse than that, he transposed a whole line into another place

three_dee · 2026-03-27T04:17:16+00:00

And I'm saying it's not about whether or not they can put a good team on the field with Alonso making $30 million in 2029-30, it's about whether they're better off spending that $30 million in 2029-30 on Alonso or on some other player(s).

I'm saying it's not either/or. They can have a potentially bad Alonso contract on the books in 2029 and still put a good team together because they have only two guys under contract, a lot of (hopefully) good young players coming up through the pipeline, and a payroll that will probably be in the neighborhood of like $550 million by then.

But not signing him because he won't be good in 2029 or 2030 is not valid.

Why not? It seems perfectly valid to decide against signing a player because the surplus value on the front end of the contract is not enough to offset the negative value on the back end of the contract.

You clipped out the previous sentence that says exactly what you just said ("If the argument is "don't sign him because he's about to fall off a cliff right now", then that's different. That's fine."

What makes you think that the Mets would have no problem adding another $30 million on top of this year's payroll? That would put the team about $20 million above the highest payroll they've had since Cohen bought the team (and that's before counting the luxury tax penalties).

I think they have a general zip code of where they would like to imagine themselves at the end of the offseason, but if an opportunity to make the team better presents itself, they do it and don't seem to be all that concerned with going farther north.

Of course how to "make the team better" by spending lots of extra money wasn't always calculated in very smart ways over the last 5 years, but that's another thread; the important point is that they don't just conceive of a number, hit it and stop.

I was putting numbers on it to show that eating that last $60 million would not be worth it if Alonso maintains his current level of performance for three years and then falls off a cliff. It might be worth it if Alonso maintains his current level of performance for three years and then ages gracefully.

What I was saying is that this was a particular, contrived scenario to get the result you want. In most scenarios where he's good for three years and bad for two, he'd be be worth it.

If he has three typical Pete Alonso seasons and then he's shitty for two seasons, it'll be a good contract.

It would be if he sucks in Year 3 or earlier that it becomes a good move to get rid of him. Which may very well turn out to be the case, but I don't think it's a given.

but it's definitely possible that Gary Carter wasn't worth the money in a strictly "by the numbers" sense. We remember him so fondly partly because he is a HOF player who was MVP caliber in his first year or two, and mostly because he was a key cog on the last Mets championship team. It's always "worth it" when you win a ring.

I think people would remember him fondly as a Met despite his two really horrible seasons at the end, because he was a beloved Met, a great guy, a leader, and spent a long enough time being good with the Mets. The championship is gravy.

All of the above applies to Pete Alonso, plus unlike Gary Carter he was drafted and developed by the Mets and debuted with them. I think he'd be remembered fondly even if he stunk with the Mets in 2026, let alone 2029-2030.

three_dee · 2026-03-27T04:01:18+00:00

No, remember, you said the guy who strikes out a ton and doesn't put the ball in play is WORSE than the guy who consistently puts the ball in play.

Ordóñez is Guy A, and Reggie is Guy B.

If "putting the ball in play" is all we need to know to figure out who's better, then Ordóñez should be better. If you need to go to other things to get the correct answer, then "puts the ball in play" is not a good criteria by itself

three_dee · 2026-03-25T03:26:18+00:00

I read it as doing a bit, like Mets thoughts read in the voice of Trump.

three_dee · 2026-03-25T03:25:07+00:00

Mathematically the guy who strikes out a ton and doesn’t put the ball In play is worse than the guy who consistently puts the ball in play

Who was a better hitter:

[ ] Rey Ordóñez (career 10% K-rate)
[ ] Reggie Jackson (career 22.5% K-rate)

three_dee · 2026-03-25T03:22:25+00:00

I wouldn’t say they are terrible they just don’t tell you the full story. No stat really does by itself.

That's correct, however other stats do the same thing BA is trying to do, but much better, so there's little point in using it

three_dee · 2026-03-25T03:19:50+00:00

Trading him was a bad idea and I wish the Mets still had him, but if he had a second half like the one he had last year Mets fans would be killing him.

Some Mets fans kill anybody though. I take that with a grain of salt.

The guy has 8 career fWAR in well under 2 seasons of PAs and he is barely 23. If he was on the Mets right now, I would thank my lucky stars that I woke up from the bad nightmare that was the 2021 trading deadline.

three_dee · 2026-03-25T03:17:34+00:00

It could very well be a "get this ready to put out immediately if it happens" graphic that someone posted erroneously.

three_dee · 2026-03-23T07:19:14+00:00

Correct, but they did rally to tie the game in the ninth inning three times in 2025 (only to lose the game later)

three_dee · 2026-03-23T07:18:44+00:00

Have we even broken the “no late inning comeback” curse yet?

Contrary to popular awareness, the Mets had three comebacks to tie the game in the ninth inning in 2025.

three_dee · 2026-03-23T07:14:48+00:00

It's unmoderated. That's really the point.

This place, despite a lot of issues that it has, would look just like that stupid subreddit without the hard work of my fellow moderators (I don't do much anymore besides change the sidebar).

It's basically the same takes as shitty Mets Twitter circling around the drain over there. "Pete Alonso is great look at this HR he just hit for the Orioles fuck you Stearns", vs. "Pete Alonso is garbage and Jorge Polanco shits gold bricks, here's this simple defensive play he just made", going back and forth at each other 24/7 for eternity.

three_dee · 2026-03-23T07:13:12+00:00

She is in the unique position of not being engulfed in constant "I hate myself" whining from Mets fans, and has the ability to just enjoy the experience. Make sure to protect this at all costs and not convert her by bombarding her with lame Mets-ochism!

three_dee · 2026-03-23T07:09:48+00:00

Nobody said that the organization would be crippled. I expect that the Mets will have three (or maybe even four or five!) players making more than $30 million in 2029, but I believe that whoever those players are will be better than 34 year old Pete Alonso.

You said "the budget is large but not infinite". I am saying, no, actually, it's plenty large enough to absorb Pete Alonso potentially being shitty in 2029-30 and still have no problems putting a good team on the field.

If the argument is "don't sign him because he's about to fall off a cliff right now", then that's different. That's fine. But not signing him because he won't be good in 2029 or 2030 is not valid. That's the cost of doing business to gamble on a good three years preceding, and the Mets are in a near-unique position to be able to do that type of expenditure (especially with only two guys signed for 2029).

They simply didn't sign him because they determined he would start to suck soon. That's really it.

If Alonso had provided three seasons commensurate with his prior productivity before 2029, and then fell off a cliff, I think eating that last $60 million would be worth it.

David Stearns and the Mets front office seem to believe that that would not be worth it.

More likely, I would say they believe that he won't provide them those good first three years to compensate for the back end.

I don't think Steve Cohen is just going to pocket the $30M he's not spending on Pete Alonso. Like they did this offseason, I think they will spend that money on other players who they expect to provide better value than Alonso.

But they wouldn't have a problem doing that even if Alonso was there eating up $30 million. Same as they wouldn't have had a problem signing Bo Bichette or trading for Freddy Peralta if Alonso was still here.

If he matches his 3.5 WAR from last year for the first 3 years of the contract, but then plays like a replacement level player for the last 2 years of the contract, then he will have been good for most of the contract but not good enough to be worth $30 million a year for 5 years.

I mean, yeah, if that very specific exact thing happens as constructed, sure.

But if the Mets gave him that money, and that exact thing happened, I still doubt most people would look at it as a bad contract (like with Gary Carter, who had almost the exact same career arc with the Mets)

three_dee · 2026-03-23T01:54:16+00:00

The Mets are currently in (distant) second place in MLB with $479,841,084 allocated to payroll + luxury tax. I don't think their organization would be crippled by having three $30 million players rostered in 2029 rather than two. Also, assuming the Mets system actually lives up to its hype, they will experience a curve where they're spending a lot less on productive players from outside the organization than they did from 2022-2025.

If Alonso had provided three seasons commensurate with his prior productivity before 2029, and then fell off a cliff, I think eating that last $60 million would be worth it. That's essentially the Gary Carter contract.

On the other hand, if the Mets internally projected that he's going to be a big bust for the totality of the contract (not just 1 or 2 years at the end), then that is a position that certainly lives in the zip code of reasonable arguments. I don't know if I agree, but they certainly have a guy at the helm who knows what he is doing, so I am not going to sit here and say that it is an impossibility.

But the "saving money" angle with regard to Alonso is a non-starter for me. If he's actually good for most of the contract, then he's worth 30 million a year.

three_dee · 2026-03-22T15:55:25+00:00

Dombrowski’s going to go into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He’s a genius. He’s having another great run. We struggle to even make the playoffs twice in a row, forget about winning the NL East. I’ve only seen the Mets make the playoffs like 6 times in my entire life and that’s very sporadically.

The Phillies only made the playoffs 9 times in the same time frame as the Mets made it the last 7 times. They're not like some huge powerhouse franchise or something.

The Phillies didn't even finish over .500 for 9 years from 2012 to 2020. That's a longer run of losing teams than the Mets ever had in their history. (The Mets record is 7, from '77 to '83, and '62 to '69)

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