Even for ‘Big-Spending’ Cubs, Pete Alonso Not a Consideration with Scott Boras Reportedly Seeking $200M+
The Cubs have done so little over the last week and change that the only columns I’ve written in the last five days have been about their offer to Hyeseong Kim and interest in Yoán Moncada. And they don’t even have the recent blizzard to blame because their inactivity has gone on longer than my local Planet Fitness has been closed (four days between inclement weather and “unexpected repairs”). Jedward wishes he had such a convenient excuse, but he might need to get busy with Cubs Convention looming in a little over a week.
If they don’t do anything of note, ownership and the front office can still hang their hats on the idea that the Cubs have spent more so far in free agency than their four divisional rivals…combined. Not that dropping $43.3 million is anything to crow about, especially when that figure is ostensibly $25 million lower due to the Cody Bellinger trade. Adding Kyle Tucker‘s projected $16 million offsets a good chunk of that, though Isaac Paredes should earn around $7 million.
I’ve now strayed from the point, which is that the Cubs can once again defend their decision to sit out the top of the market by pointing to what their small-market peers have likewise refused to do. But that’s like a higher seed in the tournament playing their bench guys when they’re down late in the game because the numbers say they should still win anyway. How has that strategy worked out against the Brewers? Hey, maybe this will finally be the year Milwaukee no longer manages to make chicken salad.
The flip side of the “Ricketts cheap!” coin is that spending just to spend doesn’t make any sense at all. Some folks managed to convince themselves the Cubs were actually trying to land Corbin Burnes despite literally all the evidence saying otherwise. My objection to a pursuit that never happened in the first place was deep skepticism of the former Brewer’s ability to continue pitching like an ace. We’ll see how that goes for him, but Arizona has a poor track record of paying big money to free-agent pitchers.
Next up on the list of dudes who may not be worth what they’ll be paid even if the Cubs were willing to meet those demands is Pete Alonso. It’s actually Alex Bregman, but Alonso is first for reasons we’re about to get into. Though he would certainly provide them with more of the needed slug they’ve actively avoided for far too long, he’s kind of a one-trick pony who wants to be paid as much more than just a DH. Michael Busch is a more well-rounded contributor who will probably be more valuable over the next five-plus years even if his pop can’t match Polar Bear’s.
That would have been true even at the prediction of five years and $125 million from MLB Trade Rumors that feels about right. According to Bob Nightengale, however, Scott Boras is targeting something akin to the nine-year, $214 million contract Prince Fielder got from the Tigers. In 2012. As a 28-year-old with 230 homers. Alonso is a 30-year-old with 226 homers whose best season came as a rookie in 2019. While that Fielder deal would offer a slightly lower AAV ($23.8M) than the above prediction, the duration alone should be a non-starter. Not to mention it’s a bigger figure than either Freddie Freeman (6/$162M) or Matt Olson (8/$168M).
No one in their right mind would be cool paying Alonso $52 million total, $2.8 million more AAV, or one year longer than either of those players. If Boras is truly seeking Fielder money — which is funny to say more than a dozen years later — for Alonso and Manny Machado money for Alex Bregman, it’s going to be yet another very long offseason for at least two of his clients.
Gee, it’s almost like that’s a pattern we’ve seen before.
Like with Carlos Correa and Jordan Montgomery, both of whom ended up settling for far less than they’d initially sought. Correa seems to be somewhat satisfied in Minnesota, though that could be more a matter of seeing his market fizzle more than once and having little choice. Now his name has come up in trade rumors. Montgomery is not at all happy with his situation in Arizona, where ownership has been publicly acrimonious about the deal they signed last spring. The burly lefty has likewise been available in trade talks after securing his player option for 2025, but it’s hard to see any team touching that.
If there is to be any sort of Cubs connection to either Alonso or Bregman, who fans have started to clamor for as his pool of suitors appears to be getting shallower, it’ll come in the form of a desperation play. Like Correa before them, twisting in the wind while camps open up could prompt either slugger to mandate their agent find them something immediately. And even though I don’t think Hoyer would be too keen on pushing to something like $30 million AAV even on a very short term, the limited risk of a glorified pillow deal might offset the risk.
You know, like it did with Bellinger. The Cubs may have gotten just a little too cute with that one, pushing themselves into the luxury tax penalty box due to underperformance and the inability to unload one or more contracts at the deadline. Would Hoyer risk burning his hand on the hot stove yet again in order to bring in Bregman or Alonso on what might amount to a rental in the best-case scenario? He might if it means keeping his job.
This kind of needle threading shouldn’t even be a factor because the Cubs could very well spend through any mistakes or misfortune. They simply choose not to, which often leaves the baseball ops side with paralysis by analysis even though their options are decidedly limited by the budget imposed by ownership and business ops. It’s like a Schrödinger’s cat paradox in which the veiled nature of the situation leaves us all pondering whether the Cubs are alive or Jed.