After watching Pete Alonso put together one of the best seasons of his career in Baltimore while the New York Mets stumbled to their worst finish in nearly a decade, president of baseball operations David Stearns was finally confronted with the question Mets fans have been asking all season.
Knowing what he knows now, should the Pete Alonso situation have been handled differently?
“I think that’s a very fair question,” Stearns said during his end-of-season press conference. “The truth is, in this job, I don’t get mulligans.”
That’s about as close to a do-over as Stearns can get.
One offseason after the Mets allowed the most prolific home run hitter in franchise history to walk, Alonso responded by putting together a monster first season with the Baltimore Orioles.
The 31-year-old first baseman hit .267 with a .363 on-base percentage and .522 slugging percentage, blasting 43 home runs, driving in 113 runs and scoring 100 times. He finished with 161 hits, drew 81 walks and posted an .885 OPS while remaining one of baseball’s most durable players.
Alonso led the American League in both home runs and RBIs and became the first player in Major League history to win an RBI crown in both leagues.
And he did it while the Mets desperately searched for the production they lost at first base.
“I also recognize Pete had a tremendous year,” Stearns said. “And the totality of our production at first base wasn’t good enough.”
That might be an understatement.
Mets first basemen combined for only 18 home runs, 77 RBIs and a .667 OPS in 2026, with only two teams producing a lower OPS from the position.
Jorge Polanco, signed to a two-year, $40 million deal and expected to help fill the void at first, appeared in only 37 games because of physical issues. Mark Vientos also failed to provide consistent production at the position before Jared Young emerged later in the season.
Meanwhile, Alonso was doing exactly what he had done for years in Queens: hitting home runs, driving in runs and staying in the lineup.
The contrast became impossible to ignore when Baltimore visited Citi Field in September.
Alonso received standing ovations from Mets fans throughout the series, and when he launched the 300th home run of his career on September 15, tying the game in the ninth inning, the former Met received a rare curtain call as an opposing player.
Then came the chants.
“Fire Stearns!”
The scene provided a painful snapshot of how dramatically the decision had backfired during its first season.
Alonso had signed a five-year, $155 million contract with Baltimore after the Mets declined to make the long-term commitment necessary to retain their homegrown slugger. Stearns instead emphasized pitching, defense and what the organization repeatedly described as “run prevention.”
Following a 74-88 season, even Stearns acknowledged that phrase had run its course.
“I think I’ll retire the phrase ‘run prevention,’” Stearns joked. “I don’t know that that one worked particularly well.”
It certainly didn’t produce the intended results.
The Mets finished 74-88, their worst record since 2017, despite opening the season with a franchise-record $358 million payroll. A 12-game losing streak in April sent the season spiraling, Carlos Mendoza was fired in June and the club eventually became a seller at the trade deadline.
By season’s end, New York sat alone at the bottom of the National League East.
Last place.
For the first time since 2003.
That finish makes the Alonso decision considerably harder to separate from the larger evaluation of Stearns’ roster construction.
Alonso alone wouldn’t have fixed everything that went wrong. Juan Soto and Francisco Lindor missed significant time with calf injuries, the pitching staff failed to perform consistently and multiple pieces of the roster underachieved.
But first base was one position where the Mets knowingly moved away from an established elite power hitter—and received substantially less production afterward.
Stearns didn’t attempt to hide from that reality.
“We try to learn from everything, and I think the entire offseason last year was a learning experience for me,” Stearns said. “I give Pete an enormous amount of credit. He went out and had a really good year.”
Stearns added that it is now his responsibility to construct a roster that performs better in 2027, specifically acknowledging the need for improved production at first base.
And that’s where his “mulligans” comment carries the most weight.
Baseball executives don’t get to rewind an offseason after seeing how their decisions turn out. They make evaluations, calculate risk, allocate payroll and live with the results.
The first year of this particular decision couldn’t have produced a much harsher contrast.
Pete Alonso left New York and immediately hit 43 home runs with 113 RBIs for Baltimore.
The Mets replaced his production by committee, won 74 games and finished dead last in the NL East for the first time in 23 years.
Stearns doesn’t get a mulligan.
Now he has to prove he learned something from the shot he already took.
