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It’s not that any of these data points has to be the winning domino, slammed down on the table. Alonso was a lifetime Met and the team’s most popular player. Alonso is a player of limited skills who is unlikely to hold his value over the life of a five-year deal. Stearns’s job is to balance those factors and make a decision. I think it’s fair for Mets fans to be disappointed in the decision without reducing, as I saw in many places, Stearns to a caricature, a robot who doesn’t understand Mets’ fans relationship with Alonso. Even at that, what would have been a reasonable counter to the Orioles’ offer? $32 million a year? $35 million a year? $40 million a year?
How about $65 million?
From where I sit, the single biggest factor in the decision to let Alonso walk isn’t the aging curve or his bad defense or even David Stearns hating Mets fans. It’s the product-investment tax. It’s the rules put in place to, more or less, stop the Mets from signing Pete Alonso.
