Mets Owner Gets “Brutally Honest” About Alonso/Boras Talks: “Exhausting”

This wouldn't be the first time a major league team owner had a difficult negotiation with notorious agent Scott Boras. But New York Mets owner Steve Cohen has come out publicly with a "brutally honest" assessment of the cantankerous free agent talks with Boras over longtime Mets All-Star Pete Alonso, per Will Sammon in The Athletic:

Personally, this has been an exhausting conversation and negotiation. I mean, Soto was tough — this is worse.
We made a significant offer … I don’t like the structures that are being presented back to us. It’s highly asymmetric against us. And I feel strongly about it.

Cohen was eventually able to land superstar Juan Soto on a historic $765 million contract, the largest ever in North American sports. But as far as the way Boras has made these Alonso negotiations such an excruciating, dragged-out process, the end result is Alonso's fit with the Mets is slipping away:

I will never say no. There’s always the possibility. But the reality is we’re moving forward. And as we continue to bring in players, the reality is it becomes harder to fit Pete into what is a very expensive group of players that we already have. That’s where we are. And I am being brutally honest.

Last year, well in advance of free agency, the Mets reportedly made Alonso a 7-year, $158 million extension offer. But Cohen now knows he's negotiating against himself with an offer like that, and has presented a three-year offer of about $70 million that has been rejected by Boras (and, we presume, Alonso).

“I don’t like the negotiations," reiterated Cohen. "I don’t like what’s been presented to us. Listen, maybe that changes. Certainly, I’ll always stay flexible. If it stays this way, I think we are going to have to get used to the fact that we may have to go forward with the existing players that we have.”

Alonso has the second-most home runs in all of baseball since the 2019 season, behind only Aaron Judge. He's a four-time All-Star in his six seasons, and has 226 HR over that time.

But first basemen in their 30s just don't command contracts that large anymore, and Alonso (and Boras, of course) better come to that realization, or Polar Bear will be migrating elsewhere before this winter is out.