It’s been weeks since Pete Alonso made the jump to Baltimore with a $155 million deal, but the Mets still don’t look like they’ve fully bounced back. And what’s really been eating at fans and insiders alike is the big question: how did the Mets not even make an offer to their all-time home run leader, despite having the richest owner in baseball?

According to MLB insider Joel Sherman, the Mets never put an offer on the table because Alonso started drawing bids with more money and longer terms than the team’s “comfort zone”. So, that explanation only fueled the belief that the Mets completely dropped the ball.

But before you lock in that conclusion, ESPN’s Mike Puma just dropped a new report that might make you rethink the whole situation.

“David Stearns told Pete Alonso’s camp at the general manager’s meetings in Las Vegas last month that the Mets were interested in re-signing the All-Star first baseman,” Puma shared via the New York Post.

According to Puma, the Mets actually did engage with Alonso early on, well before other teams really entered the picture. Notably, David Stearns started talks with him back at the GM Meetings in Las Vegas in November. But once suitors started getting involved, the offers for Alonso kept getting bigger and longer, and that’s where things unraveled.

And if you remember, it wasn’t exactly new territory for Alonso. He’s been pushing for a long-term deal for a while now, and the Mets had already been hesitant about that last year. Even though he played all 162 games in 2024, hit .240, and posted a .788 OPS, it still wasn’t enough to land him a long-term commitment from anyone. In the end, he settled for a two-year, $54 million deal with an opt-out.

However, this year Alonso flipped the script. He bounced back with 38 HRs, an .871 OPS, and noticeable improvements in things like hard-hit rate and chase rate. Yes, he is now a year older, but clearly a better hitter. And that performance pushed him back into long-term deal territory, with reports saying he was looking for something like seven years and around $210 million!

For the Mets, though, that kind of commitment to a 31-year-old slugger was simply outside their comfort zone. Puma reports that after about four weeks following those GM Meetings, the Mets stopped communicating with Alonso’s agent, Scott Boras.

Then, at the Winter Meetings on December 10, Boras informed Mets owner Steve Cohen that Alonso was moving forward with a five-year, $155 million deal with the Orioles.

That’s still more than what the Mets were willing to offer.

So the idea that the Mets never tried to bring Alonso back isn’t really accurate. They did engage. It was their reluctance to go all-in on a long-term deal that ultimately made the reunion fall apart.

The Mets are rebuilding at the Yankees’ cost

The Mets did lose a big chunk of their core, namely Pete Alonso, Edwin Díaz, and Brandon Nimmo. And they also missed out on a few players they had circled. But that doesn’t mean their offseason is dead by any stretch. Rather, they’re resetting, and interestingly, it’s coming at the Yankees’ expense!

Well, we’ve already seen this trend start with Juan Soto last year. High-end relievers like Devin Williams and now Luke Weaver have crossed town from the Yankees to the Mets. So, with Díaz gone, the Mets instead rebuilt the back end of the bullpen with Williams and Weaver handling those late innings.

And to replace Alonso, the Mets brought in Jorge Polanco and are planning to give him a look at first base!

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The Mets aren’t done shopping yet.

They’re still very much in the mix for big names like Kyle Tucker and Alex Bregman. And if they manage to land even one of those guys, the roster could look very different in a hurry. Considering they haven’t gone on a spending spree yet this offseason, fans have plenty of reason to think a splash move is still coming.

And who knows? That next big name could be Cody Bellinger, just another potential Yankee making the jump across town to Queens!