Mets' Pete Alonso contract will make you miss when players desperately wanted to be Yankees

Throughout Pete Alonso's entire protracted negotiating process, one theme was entirely clear: he wanted to be a New York Met.

The Mets? They weren't sure they wanted him, and dragged a lengthy back-and-forth to the finish line on Wednesday night in unspectacular fashion, landing on a one-year, $30 million guarantee replete with a bounce back opportunity. All along, though, conventional wisdom was that Alonso would stay unless he was "blown away" by an external offer. When the dust settled, it became clear that even that wasn't true; the Mets were outbid rather significantly by Toronto, but not significantly enough to sway Alonso. He waited.

He did not get what he wanted. Neither did the Mets; they seemed ready, willing, and even excited to move on. But, in the end, Alonso received a chip on his shoulder and the landing spot he refused to budge from all along, even as they played disaffected hardball with his future.

Alonso is a Met through and through. He didn't want to leave the city. He didn't want to leave his teammates. He didn't want last year's underdog run to end. And man ... wouldn't it be nice if the Yankees had more players like that?

Mets-Pete Alonso deal will make you miss when Yankees used to win negotiations

The closest thing to Alonso on the other side of town is Aaron Judge, who required a European phone call from Hal Steinbrenner to close a massive deal (though, yes, he did technically take less to stay in the Bronx, despite a flurry of charades). Judge has become more involved in the team's front office decisions since that moment in time, too, to varying degrees of success (trying to be kind here).

But what about below Judge's level? He's an absolute mega-star and the straw that stirs the Yankees' drink. When has someone other than the captain hung around, hung around, hung around some more, and ultimately returned on a "prove it" deal because they couldn't stand to leave? Every free agent who wants to return to the Yankees feels like they're in the Gleyber Torres mold these days; they'd desperately love to stay, but New York's braintrust could not be more done with them.

This was certainly the hope with Juan Soto. Nobody believed he'd come at a discount, but the idea was the Yankees would have created enough mystique in cementing the relationship over the course of the 2024 season that he'd flirt with the Mets and Red Sox, sit, stew, and eventually make it clear he wasn't going anywhere, perhaps ready to compromise. Instead, he was as hell-bent on reaching the top number as outsiders had theorized all along. Nothing the Yankees did changed anything at all (if anything, they changed things in the negative by withholding Soto's suite and disrespecting his chef).

The contract Soto took was the equivalent of the Blue Jays offer Alonso passed on; larger, yes, but marginal in the grand scheme of things. He picked the Mets after the Yankees' bidding escalated to an uncomfortable degree. Alonso, who'd mentally picked the Mets, too, the second October ended, saw the bidding move in the opposite direction before acquiescing.

In essence, the Mets won two different styles of negotiations this offseason based on what they've built, while the Yankees once again showed that they can occasionally win a bidding war, but haven't created much mutual admiration in recent seasons.