Pete Alonso Spills Beans Over Being Unwanted By Mets
Pete Alonso spent about 16 minutes Friday talking to the media in two separate scrums.
The main event was a 13-minute gathering in front of a team banner with a corporate sponsor in the hallway outside the visiting clubhouse before he homered in his first swing at Yankee Stadium as a Baltimore Oriole The undercard was a three-minute smaller gathering in a locker typically reserved for veteran players such as Justin Verlander when he was on the Astros or George Springer on the Blue Jays.
In the past seven years Alonso would have occupied a locker inside the visiting clubhouse at Yankee Stadium as a member of the Mets.
In his eighth season he will spend six or seven times in a corner locker at Yankee Stadium as a member of the Orioles for reasons not comprehended by many Mets fans and others within baseball.
"I love this organization," Alonso said after his homer was the lone highlight of his new team's 7-2 loss. "I love this team. For me it's a blessing and an honor to be a Baltimore Oriole, so it's awesome to kind of come in wearing new colors and it's like all right instead of like a crosstown rival, now we're a divisional rival. So, it feels good."
Alonso didn't stop there, though. He also talked about the Mets and how the move to the Orioles evolved.
What did Alonso say about his old team?
During the main event, Alonso resisted being critical of the Mets. Maybe it's the diplomatic approach or perhaps Alonso is saving his deep thoughts for if and when he decides to write a book about his career after retiring.
Perhaps the juiciest tidbit Alonso offered was confirming reports about the Mets making no effort to retain him four months after he surpassed Darryl Strawberry as their all-time home run leader.
"I feel like that having that respect from the guys I was with every day, the guys that I was going to battle every day with, so to speak -- whether it be from the manager and other players -- having that respect is obviously nice," Alonso said. "But there's no final conversation from a brass or ownership standpoint."
And it was something hardly surprising to the durable 31-year-old, who is among the most productive of the 111 players (I looked it up) to appear at least once for the Mets since David Stearns took over in 2024.
"No, not really," Alonso said. "Because I think things were kind of progressing in the way with Baltimore, and they were just like, 'OK, all right.' The No. 1 thing through the whole process. It's kind of when you're going through free agency and things are coming across, when things are so good you really don't want to mess that up."
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Why isn't Alonso a Met?
The concise answer is he was unwanted by Stearns and to a possibly lesser extent by owner Steve Cohen, who stepped in to sign Alonso in Feb. 2025 following fan pressure but did not seemingly overrule his top decision maker in December.
Alonso went deep into his first time in free agency following 2024, a season when he struggled in the regular season but hit the famous two-run homer off Devin Williams in the wild-card series clincher in Milwaukee.
He accepted a two-year, $54 million deal to get a seventh season with the Mets. That deal contained an opt-out, Alonso took advantage after hitting 38 homers, did not wait around and quickly joined the Orioles
By December 12 he was on the Orioles, getting a five-year $155 million contract. It was about three million less than what Alonso turned down with the Mets in 2023 when Billy Eppler was leading the front office.
How is it going with Alonso's new team?
The Orioles are hopeful Alonso's arrival along with continued development of young hitters Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson will lead them back into contention after taking a massive step back with a 75-87 finish in 2025.
It remains to be seen if they enter the playoff conversation. Considering the fact that only the Yankees, Tampa Bay Rays and A's are the only AL teams with winning records so far it may not be difficult.
Alonso's new team is two games under .500 and his homer was part of Baltimore's 10th loss in 16 games and 13th game when they were held to three runs or fewer.
"Things were very bleak, from an outside perspective," Alonso said about the Mets' ugly start, though he could have been talking about the inconsistencies of the Orioles. "Baseball is a long season. It's a marathon," Alonso said. "It's bad, but there's five months left in the season. There's always time."
What about first base for the Mets?
In the words of Brent Jennings in his role as Ron Washington in the film adaptation of "Moneyball", it's incredibly hard.
Shortly after Alonso joined the Orioles the Mets pivoted to Jorge Polanco. They gave him two years and $40 million to figure out first base after playing one inning there in his first 12 seasons as a middle infielder.
The Mets have yet to see if Polanco can consistently handle first base since he is currently injured and has appeared there twice.
Polanco's early physical ailments forced the Mets to use five players at first base. Technically five players played first base for the Mets last season, but Alonso played 1,403 innings there last year, so unless someone looked it up, it's unlikely they would know that.
While the Mets may have cited various metrics and projections as justification for not retaining Alonso, he has handled first base nicely so far. That point is illustrated in any broadcast involving the Orioles that I've tuned into, announcers of both teams have praised him for making the plays in the field.
"He's shown flashes of Pete Alonso that we all know and love," manager Craig Albernaz said. "I foresee him here soon, really starting to take off."
And when Alonso does get rolling, then some people might ask the age-old question, why can't the Mets get guys like that?
Related: Orioles Preview 2026: Pete Alonso Joins a Team at a Crossroads
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This story was originally published May 2, 2026 at 11:41 AM.