Reaction roundup: Pete Alonso is back with the Mets

At long last, the saga is over. Here’s how folks in the Mets and baseball communities are reacting to the reunion.

After a long “will they or won’t they” period lasting almost three months, the Mets brought back homegrown first baseman Pete Alonso on a two-year, $54 million deal. The contract includes an opt-out after the first year. He will make $30 million this season.

It was a fraught negotiation that involved weeks of rumors and twists and turns, including Mets owner Steve Cohen saying publicly at Amazin’ Day that the process was “exhausting.” But the process came to the resolution that felt inevitable from the start: Pete Alonso stays a New York Met.

Here is what folks in the Mets community and across baseball had to say about it:

• The New York back pages were full of puns, as you would expect.

• Athlete Logos designed a new shirt to commemorate the occasion, inspired by the famous scene in The Wolf of Wall Street.

• Will Sammon of The Athletic points out that the contract structure is a win for both sides: the Mets get Pete Alonso’s power behind Juan Soto and Alonso will be highly motivated to perform.
• But Alonso does need to have a bounce back year in order for his rejection of the Mets’ previous extension offer to not look like a massive miscalculation, writes Ken Rosenthal, also in The Athletic.
• The Mets and Pete Alonso needed one another, writes David Lennon of Newsday. The reunion was inevitable, echoes Anthony DiComo of MLB.com.
• At SNY, John Harper praised David Stearns for the offseason he had, for which Pete Alonso coming back was the cherry on top.
• Mets play-by-play announcer Gary Cohen agrees.

• Pete Alonso is now very likely to break the Mets’ all-time home run record, points out Tim Healey of Newsday. “He’s going to break it,” said Darryl Strawberry, the current holder of the record.
• Even the Super Bowl champion quarterback and son of a former Met is weighing in.

• I think Defector editor David Roth speaks for a lot of us here.