ARLINGTON, Texas – Coming out of the Major League Baseball All-Star break, we give you one Pete Alonso, the New York Mets’ star first baseman. A Scott Boras client, he’s due to be a free agent at the end of the season. In the meantime, we’re barreling toward the MLB trade deadline on July 30, with many teams facing decisions on whether to buy or sell, and to what level.
One of those teams is the Mets, who drafted Alonso back in 2016 and have seen the slugger blossom into a four-time All-Star.
Alonso said prior to the American League’s 5-3 win Tuesday night over the National League at Globe Life Field that there is silence between his agent and the ballclub—which is expected in the middle of the season. Boras typically takes his big-name clients into free agency, although his signing record with his top five free agents last offseason wasn’t very good.
Complicating matters for the Mets are the NL Wild Card standings. Ten teams are still in the hunt for the three spots, from the Atlanta Braves being ahead of the pack by four games to the Washington Nationals in arrears of the third spot by six games. Of the NL’s 15 teams, only the Colorado Rockies and Miami Marlins are out of it.
The Mets, at 49-46, have a tenuous hold on the third spot, leading Arizona and San Diego by a game and creating a quandary. Do you keep Alonso to make a run at the playoffs, or trade him to receive some value beyond draft pick compensation if he leaves via free agency?
Alonso, an All-Star and Home Run Derby participant, made it clear he wants to remain with the Mets, but he has no idea what the next few weeks will bring.
“I mean, I don’t know. That seems like a question for the higher ups,” he said in a clubhouse interview. “But my job is to play the best I can and to help our team win every day. For me, I love where I’m at. I love this team. I hope I get to see things through.”
On the other side of town, we give you one Juan Soto, who’s in the same situation as the 58-40 New York Yankees battle the Baltimore Orioles for first place in the AL East. They’re a game back of the O’s, but lead a group of eight teams battling for the three Wild-Card berths—with the defending World Series champion Texas Rangers in eighth at 7 1/2 games back.
Soto, like Alonso, is a pending free agent and a Boras client. Unlike Alonso, the Yanks have no intention of trading the right-fielder and would like to re-sign him even at a rate higher than $500 million. That’s what kind of impact the All-Star, who drove in two runs with a double in Tuesday’s game, had on the team since the offseason trade that brought him over from San Diego.
Also, unlike Alonso, Soto has made no secret he’s looking forward to free agency. Asked during Monday’s media session what player he’d like to have as a teammate, Soto picked the top MVP candidate in the NL, and thus the Los Angeles Dodgers.
“[Shohei] Ohtani would be one of the best,” he said, referring to the Japanese two-way player who signed a 10-year, $700 million free agent contract with the Dodgers this past winter. “Now, he went to the NL, I went to the AL. So, it’s been a little tricky, but definitely Ohtani would be one of them.”
Such is the state of MLB as we head into Hall of Fame inductions Sunday in Cooperstown, N.Y., and then the trade deadline nine days later.
There’s currently about $1 billion worth of players on the league’s injured list, most of that pitching. Stars like Justin Verlander, Jacob deGrom, Walker Buehler, Clayton Kershaw, Gerrit Cole, Merrill Kelly and Eduardo Rodriguez have been out all or much of the season. Verlander and Buehler have been on and off the list. Kershaw, who has suffered at least one setback after offseason left shoulder surgery, could make his debut soon.
The Dodgers and Houston Astros have had everyone on their five-man rotations injured at one point or another. The defending NL champion D-backs have had four starters out for much of the season, but are still 49-48. In addition to Rodriguez and Kelly, Zac Gallen and Jordan Montgomery have missed significant time. Gallen returned from a hamstring injury before the break with mixed results.
D-backs manager Torey Lovullo said he hopes to have Montgomery back from a knee injury by the end of the upcoming six-game road trip. There’s no timeline yet for Kelly and Rodriguez returning from their various shoulder injuries.
What any team at this point gets from its returning starting pitchers is at best questionable.
Montgomery, a late-signing free agent after Rodriguez went down during spring training with a lat injury, has been unsteady. Yet with the way his contract was written, he has a $20 million vesting player option for 2025 that already kicked in when he made his 10th start. He’s now at 13, and when he reaches 18, he’ll earn $22.5 million. In the unlikely case he makes 23 starts, he’ll max out at $25 million for 2025.
The 31-year-old Montgomery was one of the offseason’s Boras 5 and was so upset with the way his contract negotiations transpired he has since fired Boras. The others who took deals with opt outs are Blake Snell, Cody Bellinger and Matt Chapman. When asked recently about his status for next season, Montgomery said he wasn’t sure whether he was going to exercise the option with the D-backs.
Chapman, who’s had a good season for the San Francisco Giants after a slow start, can exercise his option at $17.6 million for 2025 if he chooses. But if he does, he’s locked into the Giants through 2026. In a recent interview, the third baseman said he’d like to remain with San Francisco.
“But I hope they’ll give me more money,” he said.
Snell, his Giants teammate, has had an injury-riddled season in the follow-up to his 2023 Cy Young campaign, but he can pick up an option for 2025 at $38.5 million if he chooses.
Bellinger can exercise his 2025 option with the Chicago Cubs at $27.5 million, with a $2.5 million buyout. He’s on the IL for the second time, this time with a broken finger.
It might be incumbent on all these players to exercise their options rather than battle a free agent market this winter that is set to be dominated by Soto and Alonso.
For their part, the Yankees go into the second half with a healthy starting rotation behind Cole, who returned June 19 from a season-long right elbow injury and is building his way back up, even with Clarke Schmidt still hurting.
The Yanks had a great start but slowed down the last month, going just 9-19 since June 13. Aaron Judge, who had a miserable April, has been smashing the ball ever since. He’s leading MLB with 34 homers and 85 RBIs, obscene numbers after just 98 games.
Judge is healthy and conceivably could break his AL and Yanks home run record of 62 set just two seasons ago. The Yanks missed the playoffs last season for the first time since 2016, but the final 64 games look bright.
“Hopefully, the second half will be a lot more of what we did in the first, battling it out for first place,” Judge said. “It’s been back and forth, back and forth. It’s just been a fun first half.”
The second half is wide open.