Mark Canha: 'Pure-hearted' Pete Alonso is 'all-in on the Mets'
Add left fielder Mark Canha to the list of Mets players who do not buy the report that there is a “toxic clubhouse” in New York and that “Pete Alonso is part of that.”
“Saying that he’s a problem in the clubhouse couldn’t be further from the truth,” Canha said on “The Show” podcast with Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman. “I could say, ‘oh well everyone has their own opinion,’ but I honestly can’t imagine… how anyone would come to that conclusion that Pete’s a problem in the clubhouse. I think it’s the opposite of that.”
Canha added: “He’s so pure-hearted… Who would even want to slander this man’s name if you’ve ever met him? He’s like the most pure-hearted guy you could ever meet in a clubhouse.”
When asked about Alonso’s future, Canha, who was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers ahead of the Aug. 1 trade deadline earlier this year, said that he had a hard time picturing the slugging firs baseman any place else.
“It’d be hard to imagine, isn’t it?” he said of Alonso being traded. “He kinda feels like such a New York guy, he really embraces that role…he’s so all-in on the Mets. I loved playing with Pete.
“Pete is a big part of the identity of the New York Mets. Not to mention, a world-class, perennial power-hitting first baseman that doesn’t come around very often and one of the best hitters I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Alonso, 28, is tied to the club through the 2024 season, but his future beyond that is one of the biggest open questions for the Mets entering this offseason.
“I think whatever they decide, Pete’s going to end up somewhere. It’s just going to be a matter of who wants him,” Canha said. “Pete’s an amazing human and an amazing baseball player. Quite frankly, I can’t say it enough -- leave the man out of it, he’s one of the best baseball players I’ve ever seen at hitting a baseball. It’s incredible.”
On Tommy Pham's comments
In a wide-ranging story in The Athletic earlier this month about the disappointing season for the Mets, Pham was quoted as telling Francisco Lindor in early June that "Out of all the teams I played on, this is the least-hardest working group of position players I’ve ever played with.”
Canha did not agree with the assessment of his former teammate but understood where that opinion came from, as Pham is a player whose everyday routine involves a lot of swings and physical activity.
“I’ll say this, it doesn’t surprise me really that Tommy said that. Not because I feel the same way, but because of Tommy, the way that Tommy works, specifically,” he told Sherman and Heyman.
“I don’t think I necessarily agree with the fact that other players don’t work hard,” he added. “I think it’s just to expect everyone to work the way that Tommy Pham works every day is a little bit much. And that works for him and what I do works for me.
“He just kinda takes a lot more swings than other guys take on a daily basis… you know what I’m saying when I say that I can understand where he’s coming from based on what he does. And maybe he expects other people to do the same as him and that’s kind of his mentality and that works for him.”
Canha added that when talking about other players and their work ethics, in the big leagues “everybody does their own thing to a certain extent” and players have their own routines that work for them.
“Especially on a veteran team with a lot of players have that routine kind of down pat and they know what works for them. Guys are gonna go about their business in their own way and Tommy goes about his business in his own way,” he said. “And the fact of the matter is, Tommy hits and works and does like physical activity a lot more. His workload that he puts on himself on a daily basis it’s significantly more than anybody else on the team.”
On Buck Showalter’s future in New York
Canha said right when he heard his former manager’s name he just smiled.
“I love Buck,” the ex-Met said. “Playing for him was amazing and so much fun. And just a great experience. I think he’s such a good baseball mind. The attention to detail on this guy is unreal. And I think any team would be – and it sounds cliché and it sounds like I’m making an overarching statement but – I honestly think Buck could manage any team.
“Because the way he handles players, the way he handles people in the organization – the analytics group, staff, coaching staff, the way he manages bullpens – I don’t think there’s anything he doesn’t think about. And it’s amazing because, let’s face it, he’s one of the older guys managing a baseball team right now and the sharpness is like incredible.”
Canha added that “Buck is such an observant person” when it comes to the little details of the game that “I really don’t think he misses anything when it comes to managing a baseball team.”
“I think he’s taking into account all of these things, all of the different factors that affect a group of people, he’s just good at doing that… I don’t think he’s part of a problem there or anything like that.”
The irony, of course, is that Canha is currently playing for a Brewers team managed by Craig Counsell, who is seen as a possible candidate to replace Showalter in New York next year and rejoin David Stearns, who will officially become the Mets’ president of baseball operations on Oct. 2.
