The New York Mets are a team to watch this offseason. They traded away a slew of players at the deadline including aces Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer and could maybe be looking to continue to sell. The Los Angeles Angels made two trades with the Mets acquiring Eduardo Escobar and Dominic Leone from Billy Eppler's squad, and there could be another one on the horizon.
New York reportedly made slugging first baseman Pete Alonso available at the trade deadline. Alonso is under team control through the 2024 season and with the Mets potentially not going all in for 2024, they're open to the possibility of moving him for the right price.
Zachary Rymer of Bleacher Report ranked the top ten destinations for Pete Alonso and despite trading some of their top prospects away at the deadline, the Halos are listed as the fifth-best spot for Pete. This sounds awesome, but when you dig into it more, it really doesn't make much sense for either side.
LA Angels acquiring Pete Alonso would be awesome but doesn't make sense
Pete Alonso has cemented himself as one of, if not the premier power hitter in all of baseball. Hitting in a notoriously difficult ballpark for mashers, Alonso leads all of baseball since making his MLB debut in 2019 with 184 home runs and 473 RBI. That in addition to Alonso being a durable player makes him incredibly desirable.
If the Angels were to lose Shohei Ohtani this offseason, the 28-year-old would be an awesome consolation. The Angels wouldn't be acquiring the pitching, but they wouldn't lose much offensively.
The problem with this Pete Alonso destination is it just doesn't make much sense for either side. For the Angels, do they really want another player on an expiring deal? It's very possible they're about to watch Shohei Ohtani walk out the door this offseason for nothing but a compensatory pick, and if they were to acquire Pete Alonso, they could suffer the same fate next season.
Additionally, what happens with Nolan Schanuel, the first baseman the Angels were so confident in they promoted him after 21 games in the minors? Does Alonso DH? Do they trade Schanuel? If they keep Ohtani and acquire Alonso, trading Schanuel appears to be the only option which could be a foolish one.
Lastly, what about the farm system that the Angels just depleted even further to acquire the likes of Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez, C.J. Cron, and Randal Grichuk? You're willing to dip into those guys even further just to land a guy whose best fit might be as a DH?
When thinking about why the Mets wouldn't want to do this, let's look into the package BR has the Angels offering. It consists of Caden Dana, Nelson Rada, and Denzer Guzman, three of the Angels top-seven prospects. When framing it as three top-seven prospects it makes sense, but knowing that the Angels have one of the worst farm systems in baseball, would the Angels even have enough to land him without trading some of their studs that are already in the majors like Zach Neto or Logan O'Hoppe?
Acquiring Pete Alonso would be awesome. He's a star and would give the Angels a player capable of hitting 50 home runs and driving in 120+ each season. There're too many negatives for both sides to say it's just not going to happen.