Buck Showalter hopes Pete Alonso stays with Mets his whole career
No longer with the team after just two seasons filled with highs and lows, peaks and valleys, good times and bad, former Mets manager Buck Showalter chimed in about his most recent employer, including his thoughts on Pete Alonso and his unresolved contract extension.
Speaking on Tuesday’s Foul Territory podcast, Showalter was asked about his former first baseman and why he and the Mets have yet to strike a deal to keep Alonso in Queens for the foreseeable future.
After all, despite a relatively down season for his standards in what was a disappointing season overall in New York, Alonso remains one of the top power hitters in the league and the Mets’ biggest home run threat in a lineup that doesn’t figure to have a whole lot of pop elsewhere.
“Pete’s strong mentally,” Showalter said. “But I’ll tell you what he can do, he can collide with a baseball. His collisions, it’s fun to watch. He’s just country strong and he posts [up] every day.”
Last season, Alonso played in 154 games and mashed 46 home runs which is par the course for him. During his five-year career beginning in 2019, the 29-year-old hasn’t missed more than 10 games in a season and has hit 30 or more home runs in four out of the five seasons. The one year he didn’t reach that mark was the shortened 2020 season where he hit 16 home runs in 57 games – likely exceeding that amount in a full 162-game season.
Despite only being around him for the past two seasons, Showalter knows how much it means to Alonso to be out there every day.
“If I dare even talk about DHing him, he wants to be on the field with his teammates,” Showalter said. “He wants to win a Gold Glove and works at playing first base as good as it can be played. He plays through a lot of things, he posts up. He’s a winning player.”
Overall, the second-round pick out of Florida in 2016 already has 192 home runs – fourth-most in franchise history behind Mets legends Darryl Strawberry (252), David Wright (242) and Mike Piazza (220).
In fact, since he debuted on March 28, 2019, Alonso has hit the most home runs in MLB, surpassing fellow sluggers such as Matt Olson (177), Aaron Judge (174) and Kyle Schwarber (174) during that time.
If Alonso continues at his record-setting pace, he will likely pass Piazza in 2024 and has an outside shot of passing both Wright and Strawberry for most home runs in a Mets uniform at the end of this season.
And if that were the case, the price for the slugging first baseman will have shot up, just like Judge’s did with the Yankees after he set the AL home run record in 2022. Of course, Judge ended up staying with the Yanks that offseason after signing a nine-year, $360 million contract.
“Whatever they decide there, believe me someone will love to have Pete on their club,” Showalter said. “I hope he’s one of those guys that plays their whole career in one place because it would be great for the fans, but somebody else will make those decisions. He’s gonna be able to pay the bills.”
Whether those bills are paid with the Mets and Steve Cohen’s money or somebody else’s is now the only question left unanswered.
