On October 20th, 2024, the exhilarating season of the New York Mets came to a close, as they stalled out in game 6 of the National League Championship Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers by a final score of 10 to 5. A team that had made its living off of clawing back into games finally found a mountain that was just too steep to climb, and after 6 months and 3 seasons of baseball, the Mets will pack it in for the winter months.
However, for some in orange and blue, that might not be the case. Of the 26 men on the final NLCS roster for New York, 10 of them will be unrestricted free agents this year. All ten of these players were indispensable to manager Carlos Mendoza’s squad, and in some way, be it obvious or under the radar, chipped in at least one memorable moment in the year. From the emergence of veteran journeyman Sean Manaea as a bonafide ace in the absence of Kodai Senga throughout most of 2024 to Jose Iglesias, whose .337 batting average and hit song “OMG” galvanized the Mets throughout the summer, president of baseball operations David Stearns and billionaire owner Steve Cohen will have some tough decisions to make over the winter. All of this comes without even mentioning the polar bear in the room: Pete Alonso, arguably the face of the franchise, the man who broke Aaron Judge’s rookie home run record two years after it was set, the man whose 3-run home run to win New York the Wild Card series against the Milwaukee Brewers is already one of the more iconic swings in recent Mets history.
Despite this daunting cast of characters to potentially be resigned, Stearns remained positive that they could put together a good roster, no matter where the wind blows. He accredited the financial flexibility resulting from the mind-boggling sums of money that Steve Cohen brings to the table. “Pretty much the entirety of the player universe is potentially accessible to us. That’s an enormous opportunity, and I envision us taking advantage of that opportunity and being aggressive in certain spaces.” He said in a press conference on Wednesday.
In such a long laundry list, the easiest place to start is Pete Alonso. He is the Mets’ marquee homegrown talent, the biggest star in the Mets’ clubhouse outside of MVP-caliber shortstop Francisco Lindor. The two parties have a negotiating history: leading into the last offseason, Alonso turned down 7 7-year, 158-million-dollar contract, according to MLB Network insider Joel Sherman. Pat Ragazzo of Sports Illustrated reported that he sought a 9 to 10-year deal with the club. Said deal would, if offered today, make him a Met until, at youngest, 38 years old.
“Pete’s a great Met,” Stearns said regarding the first baseman’s tenure in Queens. Regarding contract negotiations, he admitted that he never discussed the details of a prospective contract with Alonso face-to-face, saying, “We both understand that this is a process. Everyone’s got their own interests, and Pete deserves to go out into the free agent market and ultimately make the best choice for him and his family.”
This isn’t to suggest that Alonso is the only order of business for the Mets’ brass. As far as position players go, there are men such as the aforementioned Iglesias, who encapsulated the entire team’s vibe for the season. After being brought up from Triple-A at the end of May, he batted .337 throughout the regular season and put up a .830 OPS (on-base percentage + slugging percentage,) one of New York’s most consistent hitters. But that’s far from his only contribution to this team this year. Iglesias’s walk-up song, “OMG,” written and performed by Iglesias himself, became a rallying cry for the rest of the squad during their turnaround from 11 games under .500 to a deep playoff run. The Mets even let him do a live performance of the song after a 7-2 win against Houston on June 28th that got them a winning record for the first time in over a month. Then there’s Jesse Winker, the hotheaded, long-haired outfielder slash designated hitter who came over from the Washington Nationals at the trade deadline. After a living made off of terrorizing the Mets, he quickly became a fan-favorite in Queens thanks to his brazen personality and moments such as his Walk-off home run to win the Mets a home series against Baltimore in August, and slamming his helmet on the ground after scoring a key insurance run in the win-or-go-home game 3 of the Wild Card series.
“[Jesse] did a great job for us,” said Stearns. “He was having a really good year in Washington, came over here and adjusted to a little bit of a new role…he was ready off the bench when we needed him. I appreciated the fire, I think our fanbase appreciated the fire. He’s absolutely another player who contributed to our team and who we’ll definitely keep in touch with.” Stearns has yet to comment on Iglesias’s future with the team, yet Iglesias himself has said that he was open to staying with New York.
Then, there’s the pitching. The Mets will have three key pieces of their starting rotation enter free agency this year. Chief among these pitchers is Sean Manaea. A man who has bounced around teams since the turn of the decade (this was his fourth team in as many years,) 2024 was a renaissance for him. He posted a 3.47 earned run average, the best in his career when pitching 100+ innings in a season, struck out 184 batters to 64 walks (almost three strikeouts for every walk,) and held hitters to a .202 batting average when facing him. Without Kodai Senga for seemingly 99% of the year, Manaea quickly rose to become Carlos Mendoza’s ace in a team that desperately needed one. Another man who had a bounce-back year in orange and blue was Luis Severino. Across town with the Yanks, his career had been plagued with injuries and Tommy John surgery that limited his availability, he settled in nicely for the Mets. While his stats aren’t as eye-popping as Manaea’s, his 3.91 ERA which shrank to 3.24 in the postseason, 161 strikeouts to 60 walks (2.68 strikeout to walk ratio,) and gutsy performances such as a complete game shutout against Miami have more than earned him a spot on the team going forward. Then there’s Jose Quintana. After a rocky period of March through August, the vet southpaw turned in some incredible performances down the stretch, specifically in October. In his first two starts, he went 11 total innings against Milwaukee and Philadelphia respectively, giving up no earned runs in the process while striking out eleven hitters. That’s three of the five-man rotation to be up for free agency.
In his press conference, Stearns declared that they would be going after pitching, and implied that not all three of these men would be back. “We’re going to have to replace innings. Part of that could be from some of those guys returning, or we may look elsewhere. We’re going to have to add starting pitching… and I think we’ll be able to do it.”
“Elsewhere,” in this case, could be referring to Camden Yards in Baltimore, where Corbin Burnes pitched his home games this year. The 2021 Cy Young award winner, Burnes made history in his first and potentially last year with the Orioles, becoming the first O’s pitcher to notch an ERA under 3.00 in 190 or more innings while striking out 180 plus hitters since hall-of-famer Jim Palmer in 1977 with his 2.92 ERA and 181 strikeouts over 194 ⅓ innings. Given owner Steve Cohen’s track record of going after big names in the pitching names in the offseason, the Mets will look to be a big name in the Burnes sweepstakes.
That brings us to the biggest name this off-season: Juan Soto. A perennial all-star, the man has burgeoned into a global superstar; the perfect complement to Aaron Judge in the Yankees lineup, his services will be desired throughout the Majors. He is obviously acclimated to the New York media circus, having thrived in it this year, and his friendship with Mets outfielder Starling Marte has brought up speculations that his long-term future would be across town. When you couple this with him saying that he “loves playing at Citi Field” in interviews as far back as 2022, then the flames start to get heated.
However, there is still a World Series for Soto to play for, and Stearns still has several months to make some big moves. When asked about making a move for a big free agent of Soto’s caliber, Stearns pushed things back down their timeline, saying, “I think it’s too early to determine exactly where we’re going to take our shots, and so we’ll continue to evaluate that plan and that path as we move through the offseason.”
