Orioles’ Pete Alonso Signing Creates More Questions in Baltimore and New York

The Mets’ longtime slugger inked a five-year, $155 million contract with the Orioles on Wednesday in a fascinating deal for both his new and former team.

Pete Alonso is leaving Queens after seven seasons with the Mets. / Gregory Fisher-Imagn Images

After enduring perhaps the most disappointing 2025 season of any team in the league, the Orioles wasted little time this offseason trying to ensure the ’26 campaign is a different story.

A month ago, the team traded the super-talented but oft-injured Grayson Rodriguez for Taylor Ward, then signed two-time All-Star closer Ryan Helsley to a two-year deal over Thanksgiving weekend. Wednesday, though, saw the biggest move yet, as Baltimore has reportedly agreed to a five-year, $155 million deal with former Mets star Pete Alonso.

The move has huge ramifications, of course, for both the Orioles and Alonso’s now former team. For Baltimore, Alonso represents another massive addition to an offense that ranked 24th in runs scored a year ago. He and Ward hit a combined 74 home runs in 2025, and Alonso’s 195 blasts since ’21 rank fourth behind only Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani and Kyle Schwarber.

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How Alonso’s presence impacts the roles of some of the Orioles’ younger bats remains to be seen. Before his signing, Baltimore projected to use Adley Rutschman, Samuel Basallo and Coby Mayo at catcher, first base and DH. Alonso makes that setup more crowded, and it stands to reason that one of those youngsters (most likely Mayo) could be used as a trade chip for a starting pitcher that the O’s still desperately need. And that’s not the only logjam that needs sorting out, as Baltimore has an abundance of corner outfielders but no obvious solution in center field (your mileage may vary on Colton Cowser’s viability as an everyday option there).

As for the terms of the deal, five years for a player entering his age-31 season who’s quickly approaching DH-only status has very little chance of aging well. For a team that will be making deferred payments to Chris Davis for another 12 years, it’s a bit of a surprise Baltimore jumped back in the saddle on a player with a similar bat-first profile. Then again, as Andrew Friedman once said, “If you’re always rational on every free agent, you will finish third on every free agent.” Consider that fifth year the price for being irrational.

And then, there are the Mets. One day after All-Star closer Edwin Díaz signed with the Dodgers, they now watch another longtime organizational stalwart and fan favorite opt to sign elsewhere. Those developments undoubtedly sting—especially considering the Mets were also a massively disappointing team last season—but it’s not as if those two players are irreplaceable. Under Steve Cohen’s ownership, New York has been linked to basically every big-ticket free agent, and the club will continue to be a possible landing spot for Kyle Tucker, Cody Bellinger and Munetaka Murakami, among others.

Any of those external options could very well end up working out better than Alonso and Diaz would have over the next handful of years. But the fact that two of the Mets’ most productive and popular players of the last half decade decided to leave town certainly adds to the bad vibe that has clung to the organization for the past six months, and cranks up the urgency to do something—anything—to stop the perceived skid from spiraling into further disaster.

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